


Free Spirit

by wonderfun



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Dreams, Mental Institutions, Multi, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-02-13 11:58:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12983589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderfun/pseuds/wonderfun
Summary: Released from the Wendigo's clutches, Hannah's spirit remains tethered to the land of the living.She entrusts the first person she finds to help her figure out how to move on.





	1. Ascension

As Hannah moved through the labyrinthine mines, she listened for the gravel to crunch and scrape under her feet. It didn’t. Instead, her footfalls came soundlessly, like a dream. The only thing that indicated she was moving forward was the person lying on the tunnel ground growing closer.

"You look like hell,” she remarked. It wasn’t the kindest opener that she could come up with, but the guy was a mess. Nearly-translucent pale and soaking wet. “I didn't have a mirror when I was down here, but I couldn't have been--"

A screech echoed through the mines at the same time Hannah recognized that the mess on the ground was her brother.

Hannah felt something hateful, searching, pursuing. She wanted to talk more, to tell Josh whatever she could, but the company she felt approaching wouldn’t give them that. “Josh. You need to go. Something's coming.” She hoped the sudden shift from playful to serious wasn’t too jarring.

“I can’t,” Josh croaked, “Lost…”

“I’ll help you,” Hannah assured, looking over her shoulder at the empty channels in the mines.

“Why.”

“I’m your sister!”

Josh snarled, “I left you. Said so yourself.”

Hannah was confused, “No, I didn’t… and no, no, you didn't. I know you didn’t.”

Josh stayed still. Hannah felt it coming, the same spirit that possessed her, the one that took her, tried to snuff her out completely.

“Josh. JOSH!” He wasn't responding. “Are you ignoring me? Josh!”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Another screech through caves. Josh cradled his head, breathing too shallow and too fast.

 _He's not listening. He's not paying attention_. Hannah was frustrated. If she could feel it, her fingers would be digging uncomfortably into her palms. She was trying to help.

She looked at Josh. He was shaking. Sweating too much for how cold she remembered the mines being. She wanted to do something. Hannah reached out for her brother.

Before she could be pleasantly surprised at the sensation of touch when it didn’t seem to exist anywhere else, she felt a _tug_ , and the world rushed around before her eyes. She wasn’t looking down at Josh on the floor. She’d fallen, and her eyes were on the cave’s dripping stalactites.

Dizzy, she palmed her forehead. Her forehead felt different. Her hair, she didn’t feel its length shielding her neck from the cold. Her hands were larger, shakier. Hannah gasped then. She hadn’t fallen. She wasn’t looking at Josh anymore because she _was_ Josh, looking up at where she’d been standing.

She thought about moving her hands, and she watched Josh’s hands in front of her, fingers flexing like they were her own. She grabbed at her body, feeling padding and overalls and sticky, drying blood and-- Pain flared from her shoulder. She peered down at Josh's chest to find the source was a stab wound. _Who the heck stabbed Josh?_

Another screech pulled Hannah out of her thoughts. She hoisted herself onto Josh’s feet and moved as quickly as possible to a way out. She wasn’t going to let him die down there.

The freezing cold water shocked her, even after she’d thought she mentally prepared herself enough. She couldn’t move one step before she felt something like vertigo, and she was at Josh’s side. He whimpered, and Hannah tried to understand what happened.

She felt the other spirit again, homing in on Josh, and she whipped around to look at him. He was holding his head and lowering himself into the water. She grit her teeth, and grabbed Josh’s hand to drag him along. She felt something akin to blood rushing through her veins, and she was controlling Josh again.

 _Okay_ , she thought, dragging his legs through the heavy, black water as quickly as she could.

Once she felt the colder wind outside the mines, Hannah doubled over, hands on Josh’s knees. She’d tripped a few times, unaccustomed to Josh’s boots, or maybe unaccustomed to his legs, or his entire body, but he was unscathed. Or, he wasn’t any more scathed than she’d found him.

Her nose burned, and her eyes quickly found the cloud of smoke rising into the sky as dawn broke. Black smoke. The fire was still burning. Hannah walked Josh's body toward it.

Hannah heard whirring, chopping, and roaring. The lodge was engulfed in flames. In front of her, seven familiar figures getting into a helicopter. She never thought she would see them again. Mixed emotions bloomed in her chest, but she tried to stay focused on acting like her brother normally would.

Hannah was so concerned with getting Josh right, that she approached the helicopter in complete silence. Emily was in first, then Sam, Mike, Chris, Ashley, Jess…

"Josh?" Matt, of everyone in the group, was the one to speak up and expectantly look at Hannah. She nodded Josh's head, and one of the rangers guided her onto the helicopter after Matt.

It was cramped. Hannah sat Josh on the edge, with Matt and Jess.

Everyone was tense. Hannah wasn’t clear on everything that happened with Josh, but there was definitely a reason why he had a stab wound, and why at least half of the group was uncomfortable with him being there.

When they alighted, Hannah found herself in front of the ranger station. Her stomach dropped. They were going to ask questions, but her account of the night wouldn’t exactly fit. She had to figure out how to get out of Josh. Pronto.

Ashley and Emily were sent in for questioning first. A heavy silence befell the waiting room.

 _I have to get out of here_. Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and exerted. She held her breath, focused on the single thought of separating from Josh’s body. It was like she was trying to wake herself up from a bad dream, but when she opened her eyes, she was still sitting in the same chair, looking at Josh’s hands. She looked up. Sam was staring at her. Or Josh, that is.

It wasn’t a death glare, but it wasn’t the kindest look either. It was something distantly disturbed, mixed with relief. Wary, weary, glad, but guarded. Sam looked worn out. There was a spatter of blood on her neck. Hannah had seen her best friend covered in dirt and grime from rock climbing before, but she was beaming with pride and endorphins then. This time, she was carrying bruises and a darkness she’d never seen on Sam’s face before. Hannah sunk a little more into the seat.

Jessica let out a noise that sounded like she had tried and failed to suppress a pain response. She looked awful. Maybe worse than Josh did when Hannah had found him, at least physically. She had wounds all over the place. Gashes and bruises favored the left side of her face, probably her entire body. The tartan blanket around her shoulders was swallowing her up, and she looked ready to let it. She couldn’t sit up straight, and she was using her arms to cradle herself.

Hannah felt a pang of sympathy for her. Even though Jess had humiliated her and laughed about it, she looked like she paid more than her penance.

“He almost shot me, the prick!” Emily’s voice was hard to miss, even through the station walls.

 _Shot? Who?_ Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw Mike shift in his seat. He looked like someone waiting in the principal’s office after he’d gotten in a fight. He had a black eye and a trail of dried blood at the corner of his mouth. His expression was unequivocal: guilt. He looked more reserved and withdrawn than she’d ever seen him. And that included the look on his face after the prank.

Hannah adjusted in her seat, and felt eyes watching her. She looked back at Sam, but she wasn’t looking at Josh anymore. Hannah searched the room, and her eyes locked with Chris’s for a moment before he jerked his head down, suddenly interested in his shoes.

“Christopher Hartley?” A woman’s voice called, sending Chris’s head to snap back to attention. The officer interviewing Ashley moved two doors down to beckon Chris to the room for questioning. His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he met the officer at the door before disappearing with her.

Every time an officer returned to call another name, Hannah held her breath like a boa constrictor was coiled around her, and even the smallest exhale would help the snake crush her. She couldn’t get called in as Josh.

Finally, it was her or Sam. Hannah closed her eyes and tried to get out of Josh again, straining until sweat began to bead on Josh’s forehead, but to no avail. She saw Sam stand up. Before the officer could answer, she was already walking toward him. Thanks, Sam, Hannah thought.

It was half past eleven when the door clicked open again. Sam emerged, fighting to keep her face unreadable, stoic, jaded. She always did that. When she was upset, Sam directed anger at herself, fighting to keep it inside. It was like she was punishing herself for even thinking about letting people see her pain. Hannah was the opposite. She couldn’t hide anything if she wanted to.

Hannah heard papers shuffling, and knew that Josh was next. She was next. The only one left to be interviewed. Hannah felt her heart rate increase as her thoughts raced.

“Give him a minute,” she heard Sam request. “Josh?”

She stood, too quickly, and started squeezing her eyes shut again. She tried again, and again, and again, and she felt lightheaded, and again, and she felt the cold tile floor on her cheek. The ground vibrated under the weight of people running to Josh’s body, and she blacked out.

 

A woman’s voice and rhythmic beeping echoed around Hannah’s mind. The voice reminded her of her mom. Hannah fluttered her eyes open. She hadn’t gotten out of Josh’s body yet.

The voice was from a nurse in the room. Was she talking to herself before Hannah had woken up?

“Could you give us a minute?” A deep voice asked from Hannah’s right. The nurse was talking to a visitor. She turned to see Mike, looking concernedly at her—at Josh.

Hannah hated herself for still feeling butterflies on account of Mike’s presence. But when he looked at her with those eyes, eyebrow raised like he was waiting for her to respond to something he said...Oh, crap. What’d he say?

“Water?” Mike repeated.

Hannah nodded, and Mike was holding a cup out to her. She took it gratefully, drinking the entire cup in one breath.

Hannah smiled briefly. She noted that Mike didn't exactly return the gesture. Instead, he worried his lip, “Happy Monday…” his voice was gravelly.

Mike moved to face Josh with his whole body, “I'm sorry,” he said very quietly. “I left you down there.” She knew what he was talking about. When she was in the mines, watching Josh and Mike, he disappeared, and she took Josh. It took everything to stop that thing from crushing Josh’s skull, but when it changed course, it was the first time Hannah felt like she’d had some control over her body, or what had become of it, in a year. It was lucky; she was sure that regaining some semblance of control was what allowed her to save Sam in the last second back at the lodge.

The door opened. Chris entered, and Mike placed a hand over Josh's while standing up. Suddenly, Hannah felt a push, and she was seeing Josh in his hospital bed. The bedside monitor beeped irregularly before it adjusted to Josh’s own heartbeat. She was out. Hannah gave herself a dazed once-over before turning to her brother.

Josh was looking around the room. Wide eyed, he looked at Chris, then Mike, pulling his hand away, then back to Chris. He turned to Hannah, but she miraculously willed herself to be invisible to him as well.

"Jess is awake," Chris said softly to Mike. Josh and Hannah both jolted at the sound of Mike's chair scraping loudly. Mike clambered over Josh's bed to get out the door. It was funny, but an intrusive thought reared its head like a reflex: she wished that she was the one he was desperate to see.

Chris watched Mike go, smiling down at the floor before looking back up to Josh. He seemed cautious of letting the small smile stay on his face.

It was taking a tremendous amount of effort to remain invisible, like holding free weights in a static position, but Hannah persisted.

After a moment of silence, Chris crossed the space between them and sat at Josh’s bedside. Up close, Hannah knew Josh was looking at the angry bruise on Chris’s forehead. Josh looked down at his hands.

“It’s gnarly, isn’t it?” Chris asked knowingly. His voice was markedly less animated than Hannah was used to.

Josh stole glances, but said nothing, so Chris continued, “It’s not as bad as it looks. You know me. Bruise like a banana.” The chuckle at his own joke trailed off. "So, are you... how are you doing?"

“I’m back on my meds, if that's what you're asking,” Josh muttered.

Chris blinked, “I was more asking if you're okay,"

"You didn't seem all that concerned back at the shed," Josh said too easily.

"… I went back for you.”

"Hah, okay, I'm sure Ashley loved that."

Chris rose up like he was preparing for a fight, but it must have been too fast because he blanched. The color that returned to his face was green.

Josh frowned worriedly at Chris. Hannah supposed he was regretting giving Chris the cold shoulder because Chris looked sick, really sick. "Hey, Cochise…” he began amending.

Chris probably didn't hear it. Instead, he collapsed inelegantly into the chair behind him, unconscious. Josh frantically pressed the nurse call button.

Josh’s guilt was plain on his face as the staff moved Chris out of the room.

“What was that about?” Hannah reappeared and made Josh jump.

"Ah!" He closed his eyes, taking trembling breaths.

"Josh, why are you lashing out at Chris? It’s Chris!" Hannah crossed her arms.

"What are you? What are you doing here?" His eyes were still squeezed shut.

Hannah sighed at her brother not answering her question, but shelved it to answer his. "I think it's pretty obvious. I'm a ghost." Hannah did a twirl even though Josh still wasn’t looking. "But to your second question, I don't really know what I'm doing here. But I did save your butt from the cold, clammy clutches of cave creature death," Hannah smiled proudly.

Josh peeked out of his right eye, and then visibly tried to relax with a tired exhale. “… Cool.” Hannah was waiting. "Uh, thank you?" he said.

"Welcome," Hannah chirped.

An awkward silence made Hannah keenly aware of the beeping heart monitor. She began examining the ends of her hair. Josh cleared his throat, "So, how'd you do it?"

"Hm?" Hannah paused.

"Save me. How'd you do that?"

Hannah averted her eyes and her eyebrows pulled together, "Oh, that's not important..." Her hands combed faster through her hair, though she couldn’t feel it anyway.

"Hannah."

"Hm?" She raised her eyebrows innocently.

Josh lowered his chin to aim his raised eyebrow at her. He was still skeptical, likely wondering if this was a dream or a trick, but at least he looked mildly entertained, not scared and distressed.

After a minute under his stare, Hannah broke, "Okay! Okay! I just... possessed you. Just so that I could get you out of the mines without you getting lost." Josh gaped at her, so she continued her defense, "You were in a bad place! Like mentally and physically! I did you a favor!"

"Hannah!"

"What! It's not like we ever promised each other NOT to possess each other even if it would save the other's life!" Hannah's arms were flailing wildly as she spoke.

"No one would make a promise like that!" Josh squeaked.

"Exactly!" Hannah pointed at him, before retracting, "Oh, wait..."

“As in, no one should be possessing anyone!”

Hannah threw her arms in the air, "Well we're here now!"

Josh face palmed, and then groaned in pain from hitting his injured head.

"So, if you were just trying to get me out of the mines, why did it take until now for you to... eject yourself?" Josh grumbled.

Hannah brought her hand over her mouth, "Oh, right. Well, funny story," Hannah chuckled, which Josh narrowed his eyes at, "I got stuck…And I was freaking out because the police were questioning everyone, but my story’s a little different from what I assume everyone else’s was, so I was trying to un-possess you, but then I just kinda fainted instead." Hannah smiled sheepishly. “But I got us out of a police interview!”

Josh was slack-jawed again. The need to blink brought him back, and he closed his mouth. "So, that's why I'm here... but you're out now. What changed?"

Hannah clapped and did a little jump, "I think that it was Mike." She stepped closer to sit in the chair by Josh, "He was in here, apologizing, and then he touched my, er, your hand, and as soon as he did, I was out!"

“Apologizing? Wow, you sure it was Michael Munroe?” Josh chuckled dryly, "You think that Mike is your unfinished business here?"

Hannah slouched and pouted, “I think he has to be! I’m not… obsessed with him anymore if that's what you're thinking. I just think-”

"At least you admit that was what it was."

Hannah cleared her throat with more growl than necessary, "I just think, for whatever reason, he can help.” Hannah kicked at the ground. She didn’t feel it.

Josh softened his expression at the sight. “And once you figure out what he has to do with it, that’ll, what, set you free?”

Hannah thought about it for a second before she nodded resolutely. Then, she added, “But…”

Josh leaned away slightly, "What is it..."

"I’m pretty sure you're the only one who can see me. And possibly the only one I can possess."

Josh sounded like anxiety was squeezing his throat. "So, I have to let you borrow my body?"

"Just until, um, I figure out what needs to be done?" Hannah preemptively winced away from Josh's impending reaction.

Josh put his hands over his face, and muffled a melodramatic groan, "Okay, I'm in!"

Hannah squealed with glee, and saw Josh try not to smile.


	2. Memento Vivere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah and Josh have a talk. Old friends make an appearance.

Josh stared at the door in silence, waiting for Hannah to return. He wondered if there was a way to summon her, but shook his head at the idea of dancing around a hospital room trying to call a ghost.

“What are you looking at?” Hannah’s voice was right in Josh’s ear.

“HIYAH!” Josh threw his body as far away as possible, clutching his chest. Short of breath, he asked, “You don’t use doors?”

“Not really.”

“Would you, please?”

“But this was so much more fun!” She laughed.

“Great. Glad to hear you’re enjoying yourself,” Josh scratched at his ear.

“Fine. I get that this is probably not the easiest thing to deal with.”

“How is everyone?” Josh asked. His eyebrows were raised with concern.

“How did you know I went to see them?” Hannah deflected. Josh glared, so she answered, “Chris is kinda out of it. Fever’s really bad. Everyone else seems pretty okay. Oh! Mom’s here.”

“What?” was all Josh could get out before the door burst open and Melinda Washington came barreling in. Josh’s face was squeezed between her hands in record time, and Josh wondered fleetingly if the hold could kill him. He gave a pleading look to Hannah. Hannah shook her head at the unspoken question in Josh’s expression. She wasn’t going to take over for Josh.

Josh couldn’t imagine what it felt like for Hannah to see their mom again after a year, but even so, she probably knew that a barrage of questions was imminent. And Hannah already demonstrated that she'd rather faint than be interrogated. Josh nodded through the majority of the conversation, tuning back in when she said something about bringing everyone home.

“You want all of us there?” Josh asked incredulously.

“Yes. Your father said it would be best to…” she trailed off, but Josh understood the implication.

“To make sure no one’s going to do any damage?” Josh said bitterly.

“You were all there on our property, Josh. We can’t have anyone telling… wild stories when they come home unexpectedly early from your trip, so you’ll finish your trip at home. Then, everything will be back to normal,” she said evenly.

Josh scoffed, “Normal…”

“Josh…” His mom said, no longer scripted, but earnest and tired.

Josh resigned himself to silence, and Melinda placed her hand on his cheek again before finishing with, “I’m going to go talk with the doctors, will you be alright on your own?”

Josh felt the urge to comment on the cosmic joke of how late that question came, with everything that happened, but he gave one more nod instead.

 

When their mom left the room, Josh gave Hannah no reaction, so she initiated, "What did the doctors say about you?"

“Picture of health, really,” Josh deadpanned. Hannah returned the flat expression, and Josh sighed, “My shoulder will heal. I'm not sick. Well, not anymore than I already am."

Hannah slumped her shoulders, but looked like she was holding words back. She reached out to him.

As her hand neared, Josh felt goose bumps. It felt like the little hairs on his arm were gravitating toward her outstretched hand, like his skin was eager to meet hers, and he flinched away from it, “Wait! Wait!” Hannah jerked away too.

“What?”

“I felt something,” He swallowed, “I think that if you touch me, then you possess me…”

“Oh, yeah, I guess that’s how it happened before,” Hannah grabbed her own arm instead. Neither of them said anything for a few moments.

Josh pulled at a loose thread on the edge of the blanket, “Do you remember everything? From last night? Last year?”

“I think so,” Hannah was barely audible, “The past year… it was like I was in a nightmare. I could see everything, but I couldn’t control anything. All I could do was watch, and think, and feel, but then those thought and feelings manifested in ways that I could never imagine or control. That… thing… used me. It’s like it took every emotion, every impulse, and just blew them up. But, I was there, behind everything.”

“Not everything,” Josh murmured. Hannah waited for his explanation. “We were back up there because of me. I invited everyone back this year. Tormented Sam, Chris, and Ashley. It was just supposed to be a game. A prank.”

Hannah flinched at the last word, “You really thought the best course of action for ‘avenging’ me was _another_ prank? Besides, what happened… after… really wasn’t their fault. I was upset, and I made a choice.”

“Proximate cause. If they really were your friends, they would have considered that a possible, human reaction to the idiotic thing they did was to run…” Josh sighed, frowning, “Same goes for me, I guess. It was my choice and my prank that brought everyone face to face with nude demon cannibal dudes.”

“Hey, they weren’t all dudes.”

“You know what I mean.”

Hannah tilted her head, “You said Sam and Chris.” Josh didn’t react. “They weren’t part of it. The prank last year.” Josh shifted uncomfortably. “No, I remember. Sam ran into the guest room after me, Chris was passed out with you, but…” She saw Josh’s chagrin, and it dawned on her, “You weren’t punishing them. You were punishing yourself. For not being there.”

Josh’s eyes were misty, reddened with anger and sadness. His lip trembled. His intake of breath gave away the runny nose he was getting. “I made it pretty clear from the get-go that I didn’t consider the people directly involved with hurting you last year as my friends anymore. Probably why they were so surprised to hear from me this year, but they showed up. Idiots…” Josh shifted in his bed again, “So, the ones I targeted… I was trying to… give them away, or something, whatever. Ashley was the damsel in distress, Sam was supposed to be one too, but she outsmarted me—should’ve known—and Chris was the hero. They wouldn’t have been ruined, they’d hate me, though, and I already hated everyone else, so… clean break. And anyway, not that it was part of my plan, but when I sent the others out into the wild, you took care of them pretty well,”

Hannah turned away. She felt a tear roll down her cheek, and she quickly brushed it off—of course she still cried as a ghost.

The words “clean break” didn’t sit well with Hannah. She frowned, battling with herself about what Josh really meant when he said that. “Josh. Why would you need to cut ties with everyone?”

He didn’t respond. He stuck to scowling at his hands.

“Josh.” She had to hear it from him.

Josh barked out a bitter laugh, “I didn’t have a choice. You and Beth—”

“What happened to me and Beth was out of our control. We didn’t choose it. _No one_ chose it. None of us decided that they were going to send me and Beth over a cliff. But you, you have a choice. A chance,” Hannah took a moment to steady herself, feeling like she might float out of her already-incorporeal state. Hannah sat on the edge of the bed, “When we figure this,” she gestured to her apparition self, “out, and I ‘move on’ or whatever, you have to keep living. You being alive keeps us alive.”

Josh’s tears fell quietly down his pained visage, “It’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not. But you’re my big brother. I don’t have to be fair.”

 

Josh had asked Hannah to “take over for a while,” and after the conversation they’d shared, she obliged. Without much to do, Hannah explored the hospital hallway. Her recent solo expedition informed her that Chris was in the room across from Josh. When she glanced into the room again, she saw that Ashley was with him. Chris looked like he was fighting to stay awake, eyelids drooping heavily, but he had a dopey smile on his face.

Hannah turned Josh away from the window. With her eyes trained on the couple in front of her, she didn’t see the orderly crossing her path. Their shoulders collided, knocking Hannah backward slightly.

She quickly apologized, but she didn't hear Josh’s voice. The silence and the shocked expression must have unnerved the orderly because they slowly backed away before doubling their haste.

 _I can’t talk? Oh, this is bad. This is really bad._ She knew Josh wanted time alone—he’d literally said as much—but she was panicking. _Josh?_   Hannah was grasping at straws, _Hello? Josh… wake up!_

She was looking at Josh again.

He looked around for other people before asking, “What happened? Did you…?”

“I brought you back, yes.”

Josh sputtered and Hannah ignored it to proceed with, “Which means, I also figured out how to un-possess you, yay, but problem: I can’t talk when I am inside you,” Both of them cringed.

“Please don’t say that.”

“Yep.”

“So, you’re going to somehow get your closure with Mike, not just as me, in my body, but _miming_ in my body?” Josh refocused.

Hannah tried to even her breaths, “I don’t know! I am just freaked!”

“You’re freaked?!”

“You’re not helping!”

“You’re making me look like I’m flailing and yelling at no one!” Admittedly, Josh was flailing a lot. Enough to attract Ashley’s attention.

“Josh?” Hannah stiffened at the sound of Ashley’s voice. She sounded cautious, but her face showed genuine concern as she stepped out of Chris’s room toward Josh.

Hannah instinctively cowered, trying to find a place to hide, until she remembered that no one else could see her. Unsure of what to do, she leaned against the wall, repositioning her hands in various casual positions, all terrible.

Josh gave a polite, closed-lip smile to Ashley, though he didn’t hold eye contact for long. His eyes were locked on Chris through the window.

“You can go in… to see him,” Ashley gestured to the room. Hannah looked down at the floor and did a bow for some reason as Ashley walked away. Being a ghost did not make her any less weird, apparently.

Neither sibling moved. Hannah held her hand out in the direction of the door: “… Go.”

Josh shook his head vehemently like a child asked to go to bed early.

“Josh…”

“Hannah…” Josh returned in the same tone.

“Just go! I know you want to talk to him, and you should!”

“I’m not going in there,” He declared, starting to walk away. Hannah jumped in front of him, hands hovering in front of him, threatening to make contact.

“You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Hannah countered. For good measure, she swiped at his hand, and he dodged. From then, Hannah kept trying to tag Josh. It wasn’t even about getting him into Chris’s room anymore, she just had to get him.

“Sir, are you alright?” A nurse spoke up. Josh turned bright red, but Hannah had no sympathy, taking him while he was distracted.

After getting rid of the nurse, Hannah stared at the door. She took a deep breath to brace herself, and froze with her hand on the door when she heard Josh’s name called again.

Hannah turned Josh around to see their mom approaching. She felt conflicting surges of comfort and uneasiness. She prayed for another conversation Josh could silently nod his way through.

“You should be in bed, come on,” Melinda grabbed Josh’s shoulders and pushed him away from Chris’s door. Hannah looked back regretfully, but forfeited.

In the room, Melinda explained, “The doctors... and the police... believe that it is in the interest of you and your friends to be moved to the nearest psychiatric hospital,” Hannah raised Josh’s eyebrows in surprise, and Melinda continued, “It wasn’t the original plan, but… I arranged everything for you all. It isn’t the closest hospital, but it is the best one in the area.” Melinda finished, nodding to herself.

Hannah wondered how Josh would react hearing this for himself. All she could do was nod. She gave a small smile when she saw how misty her mom’s eyes were, and when Melinda grabbed Josh’s hand to squeeze it, she let out a shaky breath she didn’t know she had Josh holding.

When Melinda said her goodbyes and left, Hannah was alone with her thoughts. She had, at least, the next few days with the group, in a psych ward, to figure out her ghostly duties, and how to “move on” or whatever spirits did.

She needed a walk.

 

“You have GOT to be FUCKING kidding me,” Emily spat at the corkboard’s newly pinned piece of paper. She was standing in the common area of the psychiatric facility they were sent to after one night in the hospital. Apparently, a group of college-aged kids telling stories about ashy man-eating monsters terrorizing them warranted involuntary psychiatric hospitalization in Wherever-the-fuck-they-were, Canada.

“What is it?” Sam inquired, trying to peer around Emily.

Emily whipped around to face Sam. She was the only one Emily was willing to talk to after everything, considering Sam was the only one who actually protested against Mike waving a gun in her face.

Emily stepped to the side to reveal the paper titled _Group Therapy Assignments_. Sam cast an amused look at Emily before reading through the names: Sam and Matt were in the same group, Chris was with Jess, Josh with Ashley, which left…Emily with Mike.

Sam breathed in through her teeth, making a hissing sound, “Yikes.”

“Yeah, ‘yikes!’ Sam, if I am going to be forced to spend any amount of time every day we’re here with that jackass, I think I’m going to kill him. I am.”

“Em, come on.”

“You come on! You saw what he did!”

“But then he didn’t do it. We were all--”

“‘Scared,’ yeah, I know, but did you see me almost killing anyone because I was scared that night?” Emily said, and her mind betrayed her because the memory of shoving Ashley while running from the Wendigo flashed. She sighed.

Sam seemed to take the sigh as an opportunity, “If you want to get out of here as soon as possible, we have to be smart. And not kill our friends. Just…” She breathed in and out.

Emily rolled her eyes, but took a breath. She walked away from the board to collapse into an armchair, head in hand. Through her fingers, she saw Sam join her in the adjacent loveseat. Jess emerged from the hall. The sunlight reflected off of the snow outside, and came through the large windows to bath Jess in brightness that blurred her scars away.

When Emily blinked, the scars came back, and she shifted into better posture as Jess moved to the corkboard. In retrospect, the fight they had, which was definitely not over Mike, was nothing compared to the gun thing. And Emily needed as many confederates as possible in there.

“Hey,” Emily blurted, startling Jess, “can I talk to you?” Out of the corner of her eye, Emily ignored Sam’s worried expression. She just wanted to talk. Really.

Jessica walked over to the two girls, and Sam scooted over to let her sit between them.

Emily stated, “I want to apologize for the things I said… It was stupid, and honestly, it feels more and more stupid the longer I go without apologizing, so…”

Jess blinked at her. Neither of them said anything for a while, and Jess repeated, “So…?”

Emily crossed one leg over the other, “Look, the three of us,” she looked to Sam and Jess for emphasis, “got dealt the shittiest hands that night. I mean, you got dragged through the snow practically naked, fell down an elevator shaft, right? Sam got chased by Psycho Josh, and then by undead cannibals, and I had to tomb-raider my way out of the death trap aforementioned cannibals call home only to have my friends turn a gun on me.”

Emily took a deep breath, before continuing, “So… I’ve decided that we need to stick together. I need to keep as many allies, who didn’t join the ‘Shoot Em in the face’ brigade, as I can.”

When Emily finished, Sam laughed lightly, and Jess was actually fighting a smile. A mischievous smirk broke out on her face instead.

Emily was unsettled, “What…”

Jess shrugged, smirk still in place, “Just waiting.”

“For what?” Emily said, annoyed.

“You didn’t actually say sorry.”

Emily groaned, “Oh my god, okay! I’m sorry, Jessica.”

Jess bounced once in her seat and flipped her hair, “Okay. We’re good.” She flashed a big smile, but she got serious again, “I’m sorry, too.” Emily just nodded. After a moment, Jess stood, and she held her arms up for a hug.

Emily did not move. Jess wiggled her fingers, tilting her head in playful impatience until Emily caved and returned the hug.

“Aw!” Sam exclaimed, wrapping her arms around both girls to join the embrace. “All this progress before therapy even starts,” she joked.

Still in the embrace, Emily added to Jess, “I’m sorry in advance if I kill your boyfriend in Group.”


	3. Convalescence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day two in the psych ward brings more to process.

Jess stifled a yawn before it overcame her anyway. It looked to Chris like the yawn was threatening to unhinge her jaw in the process. She gave him a bleary-eyed look as they left group therapy, and he was sure he was looking similarly exhausted though the day had just started.

“God, I swear they intentionally gave afternoon therapy to all the morning people and left us the morning shift to torture us,” Jess speculated before another yawn overwhelmed her. She nudged against Chris’s arm, “I’m glad you’re feeling better, by the way. I don’t think I would’ve gotten through this without you. And it’s only day one.”

Chris yawned in response, dragging his feet dramatically. Day one of Group, but day two in the psych ward. He felt every fiber of his being crying out for his bed at home, but wouldn’t spurn the bed he currently had in the ward. He wanted to sleep. One: because he had recently pulled an all-nighter being hunted by monsters he thought only existed in movies, two: because he’d even more recently cheated death again in the form of a glorified head cold, and three: because he hoped that whatever he dreamt last night would come back.

“Hey. Chris?” Jess leaned forward to get into Chris’s line of sight as they walked down the hallway.

“Huh?” Chris shook himself out of his head.

“What are you thinking about?” Jess probed, eyebrow raised.

“My bed,” Chris answered simply. Jess looked unconvinced, and even though Chris really had been thinking about his bed, he surrendered and told her what else was on his mind, “I had a dream last night…”

Jess frowned, “Nightmare? The dreams I've been having definitely won’t help me get out of here any quicker…”

“No,” Chris asserted, “I, uh, I actually had a good dream… last night.”

“Ooh, care to share?” Jess invited.

“I would, but I don’t really remember,” Chris admitted. After a beat, he mused, “Me and Josh used to look up dream meanings and stuff…” He smiled at the memory, and then placed his hand on the back of his neck when he suddenly felt uncomfortable, either from the memory, or from the sharing of it with a friend with whom he usually only had very superficial interactions.

The feeling of his hand on the back of his neck made the events of his dream come flooding back. It was in the psych ward, in one of the bedrooms. Even though he assumed they all looked the same, he knew it wasn’t his own. Upon that realization, he saw Ashley lying in the room’s bed, sound asleep. He was having trouble breathing normally; even in the dream, he was still sick. He remembered the burning fever, the tingly headiness, the heavy drowsiness, and then he remembered approaching Ashley, leaning in to kiss her, her hand caressing his neck.

“Chris? Hello?” Jess’s voice echoed slightly, and Chris felt his cheeks burn with embarrassment at the recollection of the dream.

“I kissed Ashley in my dream,” He mumbled, feeling his lips buzz with the confession. But then, he remembered more, the end of the dream; when he’d opened his eyes after the kiss, and it wasn’t Ashley he was kissing anymore. It was Josh. It was unmistakably Josh. Chris came to a halt in the hallway, blush and confusion intensifying, making Jess even more intrigued.

“You kissed her and…?” A devilish smile slowly spread across Jess’s face as she speculated about what Chris was leaving out about his dream.

“No, no, no, it wasn’t like that, wasn’t one of those,” Chris said preemptively. It wasn’t, truly, because Jess would never guess that the dream ended with Chris randomly kissing Josh instead of Ashley.

Jess raised her hands like she was backing off, but her smile stayed and laughter Chris could only describe as evil began to shake her shoulders.

Chris felt his ears go red, and he walked briskly past Jess.

“I’ll see you later,” his words all ran together. Chris subdued the urge to pick his feet up and start running. His legs were protesting his haste nonetheless, but he needed to see Ashley, to forget about his dream.

 

“I never used to remember my dreams,” Ashley reflected, “Now, the nightmares are like they’re ingrained in my head forever… I don’t know how I could ever move past them.” She was sitting in a circle of strangers who were all listening to her. Well, almost all. One person, the one person she already knew in Group, seemed a little more interested in the light fixtures.

“Joshua?” The group leader spoke evenly. Apparently, Ashley wasn’t the only one who noticed Josh’s disengagement.

“Hm?” Josh responded, otherwise unchanged.

“You know Ashley, yes?”

“We’ve met a few times.”

Ashley’s lip quirked upward. Josh made an effort to sit up only to slide back down in his chair and he amended, “No, yeah, we know each other.”

“And what do you think of her dreams?”

Josh made a show of pondering, pouting his lip, “No comment.”

An uncomfortable silence passed, broken when the group leader thanked her and Josh, and delved into a spiel about staying mindful and self-compassionate "on the road to recovery."

When the people around her started getting up, she realized the meeting was over. She stretched her hands to the ceiling once she got to her feet.

Surreptitiously, she navigated against the stream of people moving out of the room, keeping her eyes on Josh. He hadn’t moved from his seat. Ashley found an excuse to stay in putting away the chairs, all the while studying Josh’s bored expression.

“I’m fine, Ash,” he called out when it was just the two of them left. Ashley dropped another chair into place.

Josh sprung lightly out of his chair, spinning it around to place it atop the stack. The height forced him to lift his arms above shoulder height. He hid his wince from the pain in his shoulder well.

“Sorry,” Ashley blurted, frowning at the spot where she’d stabbed him. The look on Josh’s face made her regret addressing it.

“Don’t be,” he said tersely.

Neither of them made a move for the door, so Ashley took it as a sign, “Chris is doing a lot better. It’s lucky that whatever he had was like a one-day thing. Did you end up going in to see him?”

Josh folded his lips in, his eyebrows were brought together, but he shook his head, “Mm-mm.”

“Oh,” her face visibly fell, “I really think that he would--”

“Ash, I’m gonna stop you right there—” Ashley jumped at the volume of his voice, but then Josh’s expression suddenly went from menacing to one that somehow made him look lighter… younger.

She cleared her throat of the trepidation that lodged there, “Josh?”

He didn’t look angry anymore, but he just started walking toward the door. Ashley hastily followed, and they both went for the doorknob. Their hands fumbled until both of them somehow opened it, and Josh crashed into whoever was waiting on the other side. Ashley brought both hands over her mouth and gasped as Josh and Chris hit the floor.

“Chris!” Ashley exhaled, and while she helped Chris up, she noted that Josh’s mien appeared to change once again.

“Hey,” Chris grunted as he got up, “I was waiting for you. Guess I could’ve waited a little longer before approaching the door.” Ashley caught mirth in his blue eyes before they flicked to Josh and then quickly away, like he had been burned. She faced Josh herself.

“You… okay, Josh? You look like a ghost walked through you,” Ashley asked.

Josh coughed. “Yeah, good, sorry,” he answered quickly before rushing away again.

Ashley looked to Chris for answers or explanation or theories. He didn’t make eye contact, but he was following Josh with his eyes once he was walking away. Ashley thought there was something peculiar about the look Chris had on his face. Both of them were acting strange.

Ashley placed a hand on his arm, snapping him back into reality, “It’s lunch!” He exclaimed. “I heard around the block that the food here is actually a major plus…” Chris’s voice faded out, but Ashley kept nodding along as they walked.

Chris’s voice came back to her attention with a, “So…”

Ashley looked up at him, curious.

“I wanted to talk to you. That’s why I was,” he gestured behind them back to the group therapy meeting room, “over there, waiting for you.”

Ashley threw in some slow nodding to show that she was listening. When Chris made a sputtering sound with his lips, Ashley stopped and turned her body to face him, “Are you nervous about something?” She smiled cheekily.

“No! Not nervous, no,” Chris laughed, “Nope… definitely not. Cool. I’m cool. As a cucumber.”

Ashley giggled into her hand, “Got it. So then, what’s up?”

Chris laughed more easily, but then frowned, “Um, I had this dream… It was really weird.”

Ashley was surprised, and her head pulling back slightly probably gave that away. “What was it about?” she prompted.

“I…” He was restless, and then he sighed, “I was… just wondering if you were having nightmares.”

Ashley tilted her head. He seemed like he changed his mind halfway through his sentence, “Yeah, I am…” she admitted, thoughtful and serious.

Chris sighed again. He never said what his dream was about. Ashley decided he definitely was keeping something from her, but she let it go. Nosy was not something she would have Chris think she was. Besides, he was being sweet and checking on her, and fittingly asking about something she was talking about in Group. She carried on, “That’s literally what I was just talking about in Group—nightmares.”

“Yeah?” Chris encouraged, sounding distant but almost relieved. Ashley took it as a victory that she hadn’t pressed about his own dream.

“Every night since, I’ve been having dreams that just take me back there. To relive the same things… only I do awful things, like, I… when you are banging on the door to get inside and away from the… Wendigo… I just freeze. And you get…” Ashley couldn’t finish the sentence, though the image of Chris’s decapitated head flashed in her mind. She shook her head, “And in the basement, I lie about what the old man’s journal says just to avoid getting slapped.”

Chris was brooding. Ashley took a deep breath to go on, “Then, last night, it was even worse. I was the one holding the gun on Emily in the basement, and I…” She heard the gunshot ring in her head, “And waiting at the door for you, I didn’t just freeze, I saw myself, backing away from the door—“

Chris grabbed her by the shoulders. He shook her slightly, “You didn’t do any of that stuff, Ash. Dreams don’t mean anything. They're just random brain activity; nothing has to come from them, they aren’t trying to tell us anything.” He looked… angry.

Ashley saw her weak, scared expression in the lenses of Chris’s glasses, and it must have been the same moment Chris saw it too because his face went from ire to guilt. He let her go and added, less emphatically, “All I’m saying is, you didn’t do anything wrong. Not in real life when it mattered.”

Ashley groaned, “I stabbed Josh. I _stabbed_ him. I didn’t know, but I just…” She mimed the stabbing motion, mocking herself, and let her shoulders droop with an exhale. “So, yeah, I might not have done what I did in those dreams, but on the other hand, I _actually_ stabbed him.”

Chris didn’t say anything, so Ashley took a breath to calm herself, “Sorry for just dumping my baggage onto you.”

He smirked, eyes flickering between meeting her eyes and the floor, “It’s what I’m here for,” Ashley let herself smile at that, and Chris continued, “We’ll figure it out. Or, you will, and I’ll just look pretty and occasionally listen.” Ashley rolled her eyes at Chris puffing out his chest.

 

Mike dropped his tray of food onto the table, falling into the open seat across from Ashley and Chris with a sigh. His body obscured Ashley’s view of Josh, sitting alone at the farthest table. “Group is going to be brutal, but at least the food’s looking decent.”

“Right? That’s what I was saying,” Chris chimed. Mike sent a megawatt smile to Chris that dimmed a little when he locked eyes with Ashley.

“Hm? What’s got you down, Ashley Brown?” Mike smirked at his own joke.

Ashley smiled weakly, looking down to push her food around. She pointed her eyes in the direction of Josh’s table, “I, uh, nothing,” She sighed.

Mike dramatically turned his head back and forth between Ashley and Josh, “Really?” He mouthed, pointing his thumb behind him at Josh. “Well, I think that you were so busy worrying about _not_  worrying about OshKosh B'Josh that you didn’t notice another pair of eyes, watching you.”

Chris choked on his water. Ashley pat him on the back and he panted to catch his breath. “Who?” He gulped nervously.

“Emily?” He said, confused. The three of them turned to see her scowling at them.

Chris chuckled in a higher-than-natural pitch  and coughed some more, before he took his last bite of food and stood up. “You know who’s missing? Matt. Has anyone seen Matt? Where is he? Should I go look for him? I’m gonna go find him.” He adjusted his glasses, and departed.

Ashley watched Chris go with a puzzled look, but then turned back to Mike, “I still feel awful about Emily. I don't think I'll ever apologize enough for that.”

“How do you think I feel?” Mike chewed his lip. Then, he leaned forward, “Would you care for a bit of advice?” Ashley shrugged. “Stop apologizing.” Ashley slouched, but that egged Mike on, “No, seriously. I think it just makes her rage more powerful.”

Ashley sighed, “I just want her to forgive me.”

“I think she already has!” Mike whispered loudly. Ashley scoffed, and Mike explained, “Look, Emily’s smart. She knows how to get in people's heads, but that also means she understands people really well. I think…” He snuck a look at Emily again, and rested his arms on the table, “she understands why we did what we did. She gets it. She just wants us to suffer a little bit. Plus, you weren’t the one holding the gun. That was all my idiot self.”

“I’ll take that into consideration, I guess,” she said reluctantly, “Any other nuggets of wisdom?”

Mike cracked his knuckles, “Actually…” he smiled, “I’ll tell you a story about something good that I think came from… that night,” Mike began. “Besides coming out of it alive, I mean. Running through the snow after Jess, freezing my ass off, buzzing with fear and adrenaline and nausea… it took all that, and almost losing her, to realize how much I really cared about Jess.”

He smiled to himself and nodded. Ashley was surprised at how earnest Mike was. He scratched his jaw, “Maybe that’s what happened for you and Chris, too.”

Ashley’s eyes fell to the table, “I never saved Chris. Practically dead weight. If dead weight caused more problems every time it kept almost… dying.”

“Isn’t dead weight already dead?”

Ashley gave a weary expression, “Yes. Thank you.”

Mike kept going, “So, I mean, you wouldn’t be in any danger if you were already dead. You’re already--” Mike made a choking sound and stuck out his tongue, “You get what I’m saying?”

“Shut up!” Ashley laughed. She threw a balled-up napkin at him, and he volleyed it back onto the table.

“Hey, when Chris went to the shed for Josh, you were on the lookout the entire time. You opened the door as soon as he was back. Imagine what would have happened if you hadn’t done that?” Mike argued. Ashley just stared at Chris’s empty seat, wondering what came from that night for her.

 

Josh watched the second hand of the clock while languidly eating his lunch. It was the only thing he could think of doing other than listening to his ghost sister, who was still talking at him anyway in the seat to his left. Hannah had been trying to figure out exactly why she was still there, but Josh gave up listening after Hannah rolled her eyes at his idea that she was just supposed to be quiet and she’d be free to go.

Apparently, she’d taken over before he could “chew Ashley out” (Hannah’s words) after group therapy. She brought him back after she’d gotten food for him, so they were seated side by side in the dining room, and Josh was left picking at food Hannah knew he wouldn’t like.

“I just don’t get it!” Hannah carped, “How do I even accomplish anything, with Mike or not, if I can’t even talk as you?”

“Maybe I should just talk to Mike. He’d probably flip if he knew he might be involved in some ghost busting,” Josh said idly.

“Excuse you. I am not going to be busted. I am going to take my leave as soon as I am able.”

“Alright, Downton Abbey,” Josh scoffed, “‘Take my leave…’” he mocked in an intentionally-bad British accent.

Hannah gasped, but Josh cut in, “I don’t know what’s happening on _Downton_ , Han.” She deflated.

“Josh?” Both siblings straightened their posture at the sound of Sam’s voice. They did a synchronized turn, and Sam was fiddling with her patient wristband. “Hey,” she started, “I just wanted to--”

“Whoa, whoa, wait, don’t sit there!” Josh yelled before Sam could sit on top of Hannah. Josh felt heat creeping up his face. He cleared his throat, “Uh…” When no explanation came, Josh just gestured to the open seat across from him. Sam indulged him.

“I’ve been thinking the past couple of days, and… I know I didn’t seem like it at the ranger station, but… I’m really glad that you’re here. I really am. At the lodge, Mike said that you didn’t make it, I didn’t even question it. If I had known…” She bit her lip, and her eyes were welling up. When she spoke again, her voice was thick and breaking, “What if you hadn’t gotten out? And you were just down there?”

“Sam…” Josh murmured. She shook her head. He tentatively put his hand over Sam’s, and she squeezed it appreciatively. “I had someone watching over me.” He gave a small smirk to Hannah, who acknowledged him appreciatively.

Sam sniffled, and out of nowhere she actually chuckled, “You know… I think someone was watching over me too. I didn’t think I was going to make it out of the lodge. But I think…” She paused, carefully contemplating, “I think Hannah was still in there. I think she saved me.”

Josh almost spilled everything right then. It was tempting. Sam would know how to help Hannah. She’d at least have a better idea than he did. But instead—in the calm, quiet moment—Josh took a deep breath... and sneezed.

Sam jolted, eyes wide. “Gesundheit.” Hannah made a disgusted noise, like she always did when Josh was sick.

“Ugh, god,” Josh blinked and wiggled his nose, which was becoming congested in record time.

“You okay?” Sam asked. She brought the back of her hand to his forehead, and her frown deepened, “You’re burning up.” Josh groaned in response. Sam stood up, “Alright, let’s get you taken care of.” Josh let himself lean onto Sam as they exited the dining room, Hannah in tow.


	4. Progress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Josh's mystery illness tests relationships.

“Josh, please! You have to get up!” Hannah cried. Josh was slumped against a wall. He’d convinced Sam that he could make it back to his room on his own when she realized that it was time for her to go to Group. He made it to his hallway before Hannah watched Josh start shuffling slower and slower, veering off course to sink down.

Josh had his eyes closed. He looked miserable, but Hannah just kept pleading with him. “Josh! Josh?” His eyebrows moved up or down every time she called him, but nothing else really changed. She really didn’t want to possess him while he was sick. She wasn’t sure she would feel the sickness too if she did possess him, but it was probable since she felt his shoulder wound before.

Josh’s teeth clacking was Hannah’s next sign that she had to do something. He was taking shuddering breaths, but his face glistened with sweat. Hannah groaned, jumping in place, when she saw the familiar shape of Chris approaching.

“Chris! Come this way, come over here, please!” She begged, attempting to will him over to her brother. It didn’t work.

Hannah knelt down by Josh, “Josh! Get Chris's attention, he’s right there!” Josh just deepened his frown. “Say something, anything, come on!!” Hannah wanted to shake him. Chris was getting away. “Damn it, Josh…” She held her breath and dove into him.

 _Oh this is awful_. Hannah’s head immediately felt like it was going to split. Her skin crawled, and every bead of sweat felt so freezing cold that it burned. _Oh my god. Am I dying? I’m dying again. This is death_. Every nerve felt dull and achy at the same time. Grabbing her throat and pulling it out seemed merciful compared to the inflamed, scratchy agony she felt there. She wouldn’t have tried to talk even if she knew she could. _Focus, Hannah, focus_.

She peeled open bleary eyes, searching her surroundings for something, anything to make a noise, to get Chris’s attention. _Nothing to throw, really?!_ Desperate, Hannah slapped Josh’s palm against the wall. Over and over.

She was losing strength, fast. A cough turned into a retch, and Josh’s entire body heaved violently. _Please. Please._ Hannah couldn’t keep Josh’s hand up anymore, and it fell. The pounding continued in her head, though, and she thought she was hallucinating, until she detected the vibrations of the pounding was actually coming from below. She could feel it—running.

Chris charged into view, through the cracks of Josh’s eyes that Hannah fought to keep open. He was clinical, and then he looked worried, but his clueless hands scrambled as much as his mind seemed to, until he just starting yelling. “Can somebody get a doctor over here?! Hey! Help!”

Chris sat himself down just like Josh, positioning himself flush against his side. He snaked his arm behind Josh’s back, and grunted to bring them up together. Hannah watched Chris and Josh from the floor; she was out again.

 

Matt spun the wheel, and it ticked loudly before slowing to the number seven. He was playing Life with Sam in the rec room after their group session. While he moved his car along the spaces, he admitted, “Today’s my last day.”

Sam’s spin garnered a ten. “Seriously? That’s amazing! Matt! Looks like there’s hope for us yet,” She grinned. He returned the smile, and then took in the room, a somewhat bittersweet feeling tightening his throat. He made eye contact with Emily, and gulped. She was mad.

Emily marched up to him. “I’m mad at you,” she announced. Sam gave Matt raised eyebrows that said _all you, champ_. He glanced back at Emily to see her angry eyebrows.

“M’kay. You came all the way over here just to tell me that?” Matt kept his eyes locked on the board, avoiding his girlfriend’s glowering.

She crossed her arms, “Yes.”

Matt sighed and looked up at Emily to blink a few times. “Alrighty,” he breathed. Emily was determinedly icy, so Matt attempted to return his focus to the game.

“You’re leaving me behind. Again.”

Matt scratched lightly at his cheek and asked, “How’d you know?”

“Yeah,” Sam interjected, “Matt literally just told me right before you came.”

“I hear everything, it's nothing new, now—tell me how you did it,” Emily demanded. Sam leaned back in her seat, understanding that they wouldn't be getting back to the game. 

Matt shrugged, and before he even finished the gesture, Emily was mocking it, shrugging with her eyes rolled back and a derisive face. “Come on, Em,” he appealed.

She waited with her arms crossed again.

He sighed. “Look, all I said was, maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw that night in the mines. It was dark. I was tired…”

“Are you serious? Matt, I got _bitten_ by the Wendigo. A chunk of my shoulder is missing because of those things, not my imagination. They’re real. I wasn’t seeing things, I’m not crazy, I don’t belong here.”

“Then be smart enough to get yourself out,” Matt said. “You asked me what I did, I told you what I said, and look where I’m going.” Matt looked up at Emily to find her genuinely weighing his words in her mind.

He turned to Sam and the game with prayer hands to his lips, “Sorry, Sam, rain check?”

She nodded, “See you on the other side, buddy.”

Matt rose out of his seat and walked off. “Hey, Jess,” he mumbled as he left the room. Jess had her hand to her chest, slightly confused.

 

“What’s his deal?” Jess asked, taking Matt’s empty seat.

“No deal. He’s just going home,” Sam answered.

Jess smiled for him, but gauging Emily’s reaction, she held back verbal congratulations for the moment. “I’m guessing Em forced him to say how?”

Emily laughed humorlessly, “He sold out. Not just himself, but all of us. We all had the same story, and he just went back on it, like we’re the crazies.”

“Well…” Sam eked in a high pitch, "Maybe Matt has a point.”

“Sam!” Emily chided.

“Hear me out,” she scooted to the edge of her chair, “we all know what we saw. But I know how it would sound to someone who wasn’t there. We know what we believe, but we also know that they'll probably never believe us. If we want out, we just… tell them what they want to hear.”

“Sam, if we start backing down on what we know happened, nothing is going to change. Whatever’s going on up there, the spirits, the Wendigos, it’ll just continue.”

“We killed most of them,” Sam countered.

“You read it yourself, Sam, straight from the old guy’s journal—killing them just releases the spirits. They’ll find new hosts,” Emily argued, “We have to get that place leveled or something.”

Sam laughed in humorless disbelief, “Destroy the mountain? Yeah, I'm sure that'll--”

“Chris had a sex dream about Ashley,” Jess blurted. She had listened quietly to Sam and Emily debate for long enough. It was giving her a headache more than it kept her entertained.

The declaration had its desired effect: both girls stopped completely, “What?” they said in unison.

Emily followed up with a succinct “Ew,” while Sam wondered, “He said that? How did that even come up?”

“He told me after Group this morning,” Jess reported casually. She watched Emily sit down to hear more, relieved that their argument was on hold, at least for the time being.

 

The next morning, Ashley stared at every face in the group circle, for the sixth time. Josh was not there. She knew Matt was on his way to enjoying outpatient life, but, no offense to Josh, it was unlikely he left. She thought back to him and Sam leaving the dining room the day before. The worried look on Sam’s face. _Maybe he’s sick_ , she rationalized. Even though Ashley hated being sick, she hoped that he was sick, and that his absence wasn’t something worse.

 _Or maybe he just asked to move to someone else’s group_. Ashley presented to herself. The possibility stung; Ashley knew they weren’t the best of friends—before, during, or after Josh’s prank—but she wanted to forgive him. And she wanted him to forgive her. It didn’t seem likely if he avoided her.

Ashley didn’t stick around to put away the chairs. She was the first out the door. The hallways were busy with people moving about, but the person she thought she’d see, that she expected to see, was absent.

Pushing through the doors to the dining room, a quick scope of the room brought her lunch companion into view, fretting over his lunch tray.

After Ashley received her food, she walked to Chris to join him.

“Hey, looks like something’s eating _you_ today,” she said.

Chris raised his eyebrows, “Hm? Oh. Hi, Ash,” he responded flatly.

Ashley swallowed the urge to ask him why he didn’t walk with her to lunch, opting instead for: “What’s on your mind?”

Chris flicked his eyes up to meet Ashley’s, the sun illuminated their blueness nicely, and then they were back down again. “Jus’ tired.”

He was deflecting. It felt personal. The past year, Chris told her everything. Every little detail of his day: what he ate, what he did, what memes made him laugh, what songs were stuck in his head, what tedious assignments his professors were pulling out of their asses. Suddenly, Ashley felt ridiculous and stopped herself. It was not the time to overthink Chris’s behavior toward her. They went through something truly awful, and they almost lost so much. He probably just needed some time.

As if on her signal, Ashley saw Chris sit straight up like he was pulled by a string. He shook his head and lifted his face into a more cheerful expression, “Sorry!” He exhaled, followed by, “Can we just…” he made a gesture in the air between them, “start this whole conversation over again?” He smiled imploringly.

Ashley couldn’t help smiling back, tucking away her feelings of relief and admiration of his cute attempt to fix something that wasn’t even broken. She nodded. “Should I sit down again?” She joked.

Chris laughed, and Ashley had to mentally swat away the thought that it sounded affected. She was determined to cheer him up. _Fake it 'til you make it_. They sat, and ate, and talked about random stuff. Before Ashley knew it, they’d finished eating, and they’d had a conversation that felt normal.

They were getting ready to leave when Jess kept them. Rather, she kept Chris.

“Hey! Thanks a lot for ditching me; I was dying in Group today!” Jess whined in jest. “Where were you?”

Ashley watched Chris rub the back of his neck, “Ah, I just uh overslept.” Ashley gave a puzzled expression at that, though she kept it to herself.

Jess snorted, “I think it’s virtually impossible to do that when the staff comes in to wake us all up in the morning…”

Chris shrugged before getting into a proud heroic stance, “I can do anything I set my mind to, Jessica. You underestimate me.”

“Come on, really! What happened?” Jess pressed. Chris dropped his stance, and glanced at Ashley before looking back at his interrogator.

“I was trying to see Josh, but no one would let me in. He got sick yesterday, and I haven’t seen him since I found him on the floor,” he explained, just in time for Sam to join in.

“That’s why he wasn’t in Group today,” Ashley thought aloud.

“Josh?” Sam clarified, and Chris made a tense-mouth and nodded. Sam dropped her head, “God, I knew I shouldn’t have left him.”

Ashley was surprised that she missed the commotion of hearing a chorus of her friends’ voices together like that, sharing one conversation. “Let’s try to see him now,” she suggested as she held the door for them to exit.

The foursome ambled through the halls, talking idly until the reached Josh’s room. Jess tapped shave-and-a-haircut on his door, and waited. They were met with silence and an unyielding door.

Minutes passed, and the four of them were leaning against the wall or sitting on the floor of the hallway outside Josh’s.

“What are you doing?” Mike’s voice practically boomed.

Jess answered first in a British accent, “Trying to visit our little boy. He’s ill.” She made puppy eyes, but chuckled when she couldn’t hold it. Her laughter tapered off, and Jess sighed an apology. “We were gonna check on Josh because he’s sick, but I think he’s asleep.”

“Ah, gotcha,” Mike swept his eyes over the four of them, landing on Jess again, “I’m on my way to Group, care to escort a lovely lad?” the question came in his own British accent.

Jess agreed, and the two of them left with their arms linked. Ashley smiled, a little envious.

Sam was the next to leave, holding out for as long as she could before she had to almost run to make it to Group on time. That left Chris and Ashley, taking turns to knock on Josh’s door.

Chris blew a gust of air out, “This is ridiculous.” Ashley sympathized, and her attention was drawn to Chris tapping his foot.

In fact, Chris seemed like he was more than anxious, almost like… "Chris, do you have to pee?”

He scoffed, stopping his movements, “No! No. I do not…” He crossed his arms, as if that pose would make up for his voice sounding slightly strained in a higher pitch. "I do not have to pee."

“Chris. Go.” Ashley laughed, “I’ll stay. Keep a lookout.”

He jumped a little in place, staring at Josh’s door. Finally, he gave in, “Alright, I’ll see if I can find anyone to ask about him, too.” He rushed off.

Ashley rolled her eyes and watched Chris disappear around the corner. Smile still on her face, she knocked on the door once more, and let out an audible, “Oh!” when it opened. “Josh!”

He looked like he was still half-asleep, but replied, “In the flesh,” in a gravelly and sarcastic voice.

Ashley didn’t say anything, but he swung the door open wider and invited her inside with a gesture of his free hand.

“We’ve been waiting outside your room since lunch,” Ashley shared when the door clicked shut.

“Who’s we?” Josh said gruffly, leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

“Me, Jess, Sam, and Chris.”

Josh struggled to keep his face composed, “Really?”

Ashley nodded. The corners of her mouth twitched upward at the fleeting hopeful tone of Josh’s voice. “We were worried. Sounded like you weren’t doing too hot yesterday.”

“Sam tell you that?” Josh inquired.

“Chris.”

Josh cleared his throat, forcing his eyebrows to pull together when they raised in surprise initially, “How’d he know?”

Ashley’s eyebrows went up this time. Then, she realized he might not have been so lucid at the time, “He found you on the floor and helped get you to your room.”

Josh’s expression changed to an impassive one, which Ashley figured was a step up from guarded. “Really?” came his oddly hopeful voice again. A bang on the door behind him made them both jump, and Josh stepped away to open it.

“Gih!” Chris yelped as he spilled into the room, having lost his back support from his seated position at the foot of Josh’s door. Flat on his back, Chris gave a dazed wave.

 

Chris smiled. He was happy to see Josh, even from the floor. After the state he saw Josh in the day before, the worrying and waiting was driving Chris crazy. He even skipped Group just to spend the morning waiting outside Josh’s for any news.

“Food?” Chris offered.

After a moment’s consideration, Josh accepted. Chris gratefully took Josh’s hand to be pulled to his feet, but the suddenness gave him a head rush. He wobbled as his vision darkened. When it returned, Josh’s hands were on his shoulders, and his face was dangerously close.

The dream rushed back. Chris swallowed, and an uncomfortable feeling bloomed in his stomach. Josh getting sick had made him completely forget about that dream, but now it was back, replaying in his mind.

Josh brushed past him. “Ready?” he asked, reaching behind to Chris’s back.

Chris blinked, “Uh… what are you doing?”

Josh stilled. Chris forced himself to look Josh in the eye, but when he did, Josh answered brazenly: “The door.” Confused, Chris followed his gaze to find Josh’s hand had reached around him for the door handle. To close the door. Chris cleared his throat, more forcefully than necessary. He couldn’t be alone with Josh right now.

“Ash!” Chris yelled as she walked past him through the door.

Ashley jumped, “What?”

Josh closed the door behind them. “Wanna come with?” Chris invited, begging with his eyes for her to say yes. His eyes darted nervously to and from Josh, and Ashley tilted her head slightly at him.

“I have my session soon,” Ashley admitted, stepping away. Chris must have looked clueless because she added, “About if I’ll be discharged tomorrow.”

 _Crap_. Chris thought. He had another fleeting thought about how he should check when his own meeting was before he was plunged back into the reality of going to lunch with his best friend he accidentally had a dream about kissing. His eyes automatically went to Josh’s lips because Josh had decided to fold them in momentarily to wet them. Chris squeezed his eyes shut to think, and almost clapped when he realized his way out, “Actually, I’m gonna walk Ash to her appointment, if that’s cool?” His words were running together.

Josh's reaction was something indecipherable to Chris, but he felt guilty for it regardless. Still, Josh shrugged in practiced nonchalance and started walking on his own in the direction of the dining room, and when Chris looked at Ashley, she was raising an eyebrow.

“Shall we, m’lady?” Chris bowed theatrically, hoping his show would distract from the 180 he’d pulled with Josh. Ashley went along with it, and Chris let out the breath he didn’t know was holding to follow her.


	5. Confidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah makes her move. Emily makes a friend. Chris and Ashley make choices.

After flashing a supportive smile and two thumbs up for Ashley, Chris went on his own to find out that his appointment with the psychiatrist was not long after hers. With nothing to do until then, he ended up walking back to his room to lay in bed, waiting.

He didn’t particularly enjoy waiting. The time alone made his mind prone to idle thoughts, and his idle thoughts were inextricably Josh-centered. Dream-centered. He sat up, frustrated. It was just—he couldn’t wrap his mind around any cause, reason, or meaning. If he had an explanation, he could move on, be done with it.

Chris sighed loudly, staring down at his hands, waiting for his phone to manifest itself from the ether. If it did, he could just look up what that stupid dream meant. There was an explanation. There was. Something he ate, something he did, _something_ …

He wrinkled his nose and frowned, looking left and right at the empty room. In terms of dream meanings, a kiss seemed pretty clear-cut. Even without the Internet to tell him, dreaming of kissing someone he knew seemed unambiguously romantic. Chris let his head fall into his hands. Another breath slowly whooshed out. The dream meant nothing. He’d said as much to Ashley about her own dreams.

Ashley. Not that the dream meant anything, but technically, he kissed Ashley in the dream. When he’d leaned forward and closed his eyes, it was for Ashley, wasn’t it?

An idea popped into his head, and he sprung to his feet.

 

Emily couldn’t remember the last time she relaxed her face. Ever since this trip began (and probably sometime before it), it was permanently stuck frowning. When the rescue showed up, she didn’t remember her facial muscles moving away from their downturn. When she was interrogated, she was frowning. When they told her that they were being put in a psych ward, she definitely was frowning. When Matt was discharged earlier and left, she was frowning.

And leaving the psychiatrist’s office? She was frowning. Again. For her refusal to budge from her very true account about cannibals-turned-monsters, the doctor apparently had grounds to keep her captive for as long as another two weeks. That is, unless she was able to prove herself fit to return home.

She was still scowling when she noticed a not unattractive guy about her age walking antiparallel to her. He looked artfully disheveled, which was an accomplishment given the circumstances.  _TALENT SHOW SUNDAY_ read an annoyingly pink paper in the hands of the fellow prisoner.

“Excuse me,” Emily strained to keep her voice calm to the passerby, “what’s your name?”

“Lester.”

“Oh, tragic.”

Lester glared at her. The ‘oh’ might have come out more like an ‘ew.’ “Anything else I can do for you?” he sighed.

“Is this,” she pointed to the announcement, “mandatory to attend?”

“Well, the residents are the performing acts, so if you are still a resident…” his eyes dragged down Emily’s generic resident outfit that matched his own, “then yes,” Lester replied, leaving Emily before she could say anything more.

Emily scoffed, death glare locked on target as he sauntered down the hallway.

“Save the spectating for the talent show!” He called out, without looking back.

Yup, the frown was permanent.

 

“A talent show?” Jess repeated, examining her nail beds. She was sitting cross legged with Sam and Emily in their usual spot. Bless the common area's sofa set.

“I think this place is trying to drive me insane. I mean it. They have it out for me,” Emily speculated. Sam was uncharacteristically quiet. Usually, Jess found that Sam made some attempt to mollify Emily when she went into dramatic theories, but she was just reticent… definitely hiding something.

“Sam…” Jess started, “What’s up?”

Emily paused her tirade, hand mid-flourish, and turned to Sam as well. Sam chewed her thoughts for longer than Jess had patience for, but finally said “I’m getting discharged tomorrow morning?”

“What?” Jess and Emily said in unison.

“Matt’s idea worked. First thing in the morning, I’m free to go,” Sam sounded guilty. Guilty was good because Jess was bothered. The strategy hadn’t worked for her. The doctor told her that the staff reports about her nightmares indicated that she was “not ready just yet.”

For some reason, Jess felt like she couldn’t stay in the room any longer. Sam and Emily--well, more so Emily--were bickering again, and if Jess had to hear it again, it wouldn’t be good. She raised her head to scope the room for an out, watching people pass by on their way through the ward. Just then, Chris whizzed past.

 

Chris shook his head with a grin, disappointed that he hadn’t thought of it earlier. He needed to kiss Ashley again, in real life. The first time they kissed, he was freaking out about getting Josh from the shed. He wasn’t even sure he formed any coherent words after Ashley kissed him.

In fact, maybe that was the reason for the dream. It was following what happened in real life, sort of—a girl he was dying to kiss was kissing him, but he was consumed with the idea of his best friend in danger. He just needed to replace their first kiss with a new memory. A perfect one. He could see it now: outside the doctor’s office, marching up to her, brushing her hair away from her face, and…

“Chris!”

Chris didn’t stop walking, but turned his head to see Jess approaching in the hall. He gulped.

She was like a shark, no doubt ready to use her (partial) knowledge of his dream to plot her revenge for when he teased her about that love letter she had on the mountain. He wondered fleetingly if Mike ever received said letter.

“You know what I never asked, Jess?” Chris started, hoping to get a jump on steering the conversation. “What ever happened to that letter to Mike? He ever get that?”

“No, shut up. I have news,” Jess commanded. Chris mentally cursed, but braced himself. “Sam’s leaving tomorrow. The doctor cleared her.”

“Really?” Chris panted, trying to use speed to break away from Jess. “That is news. Good news. Good for Sam.”

“Yeah, go, Sam,” Jess said, somehow keeping up with his pace without breaking a sweat. Chris thought she sounded bothered by it, but she went on before he could comment, “Listen, I know you haven’t had your meeting yet, and what Sam and Matt said to be let out didn’t work for me, but…” Chris slowed down, curious to hear if Jess was really trying to help him. “It might for you. They told the doctor that they didn’t really see any… demon monster things on the mountain. That’s what got them out.”

Chris bit back the instinctive protest. A week ago, he wouldn’t have bet his college tuition on anything supernatural being real, but now? There was absolutely no doubt: the Wendigos were real. The old man’s death proved that. He felt a pang of guilt, and then sympathy looking at Jess. She said that what Sam and Matt said hadn’t worked for her. She wasn’t going home, but she was going out of her way to chase him down and tell him what he could try to get out. “You’re helping me…” Chris voiced aloud.

Jess rolled her eyes, “Yes, you lug nut.”

Chris didn’t ask her why. He felt like he already knew the answer. Two mornings of group therapy with Jess helped with that. There was a pretty decent girl underneath the flirtatious façade. “Thanks,” he smiled genuinely, “I’ll let you know how it goes?”

Jess nodded, and Chris felt honored when she gave him a smile of her own. It wasn’t the artificial, camera-ready one. It was kind and unpretentious. It reminded him of Beth.

Chris pressed on, ever eager to see Ashley. To hopefully hear that she was going to be discharged tomorrow, and to give her a celebratory kiss. He wasn’t sure he would use the tip Jess gave him, but it felt good to have. He decided to hear from Ashley first. If she was going home, he would do anything in his power to follow her.

The doctor’s door was still closed when he arrived. He looked around, hoping to catch limpid green eyes or dark red hair, to no avail. Chris considered knocking on the door, but sat down in the solitary cushioned chair against the wall instead.

As soon as he did, the door opened, and he rose up again. His smile diminished when it was the doctor emerging from the room.

“Ah, Chris! You’re right on time. Come on in.”

Chris felt his shoulders droop. He bit his lip, and solemnly walked into the office.

 

“You’re disgusting,” Hannah declared.

Josh slowed his eating briefly to glance at Hannah, if only to make sure she saw him shoveling the last of his food into his mouth to chew it more obnoxiously. Hannah scoffed and turned away from Josh’s proud smile. If you could even call it a smile with his cheeks full of food. She supposed that deep down, Hannah was relieved to see her brother acting—no, not acting like—he was being himself, as unapologetically boorish as he was.

And while the relief would be heartwarming, one: Hannah’s heart was no longer beating, and two: no matter how much she loved seeing her brother and even the people who hurt her, she could not deny this… drive to be free from this world. Like hunger or thirst, it felt like a disturbance, an upset balance. She had this sinking feeling that overstaying her welcome would have undesirable repercussions.

“Hannah.”

Josh was looking at her questioningly. She answered his implicit inquiry with: “I’m fine, just thinking.” After a shared smile, she got up to leave with him.

Josh almost lost his balance. “Josh, are _you_ okay?” Hannah asked worriedly.

Hannah saw Josh’s jaw clench and unclench, his eyebrows pulled together, but he nodded silently.

Not taking her eyes off of him, Hannah’s thoughts warred on. Josh seemed to be improving mentally and emotionally, but if she was being honest, he was looking worse for wear physically. Was he still sick? The crinkling laugh lines at his eyes were making their comeback, but his eyes were sunken. He was losing color in his skin everywhere but under his eyes, which only made the purple there more prominent. It’d been a rough week, to be sure, and they were still stuck in the Canadian winter, but surely Josh wasn’t exfoliating so much (how could he with the bare necessities they had in terms of hygiene in the ward) that his skin paled that much in just three days.

“Josh,” she stopped him as they exited the dining room. Without another word, Josh just extended his hand to her. Again, Hannah was struck by the willingness Josh exhibited toward helping her. She needed to help Josh, and the best thing for her to do to help Josh was to find out how to cross over. She took his hand, and left to the hall.

Her eyes landed on Mike, conversing with Jess. Mike was definitely important to her in her mortal life. The feelings she had for him before she fell with Beth even persisted strongly enough to influence the actions of that thing that possessed her. Watching him now, though, there was no dopamine high from her old infatuation or _love_ , whichever it was. There was also no fury, roiling with thoughts of betrayal and disrespect. It was just neutral. Just Mike. Without further thought, she marched up to him and wrapped Josh’s arms tightly around Mike’s sturdy waist. She waited, scrunched Josh’s face, held his breath, prayed that the universe could understand that she truly forgave Mike. She could depart without pining or rage or vengeance tethering her.

But nothing happened.

“Josh?” Mike finally spoke up. His baritone voice rumbled against Hannah’s embrace. “I take it you heard I was leaving tomorrow then?”

Hannah pulled away, and the look she had on Josh’s face probably gave away that she had no idea that Mike was one of the lucky ones being discharged to go home.

“Do I get one?” Jess teased.

Something told Hannah that Jess was the mastermind of last year’s prank, maybe it was the unwavering smugness and lack of remorse she had coming out from under that bed. Before, Hannah might have felt threatened by Jess’s question. It would have been appraised as mean-spirited and acerbic, but now, it didn’t. Maybe it was the way she said it, but Jess just sounded… sincere. Hannah let a smile spread on Josh’s face. Come to think of it, there was no resentment or animosity toward Jess, either.

She hugged Jess, and felt her chuckle warmly at what she perceived as Josh’s silent affection.

Mike said a few more words about how he was wrong about Josh. How he was wrong to leave him. How he was truly glad that the mistake hadn’t cost Josh’s life. He walked away after a pat on Josh’s shoulder. Jess moved to follow Mike, but looking into Josh’s eyes gave her pause. She had this look of… recognition… on her face that made Hannah take a nervous gulp. It was as if she could see Hannah, not Josh. She held Josh’s breath, and though Jess pulled her eyebrows together for an instant, she dismissed whatever thoughts she conjured with a smile. She gave Josh’s arm a supportive squeeze, and joined Mike.

Alone again, Hannah wondered why reconciling with Mike hadn’t worked. She hadn’t even been forced out of Josh this time. Forgiving Jess didn't send Hannah up to "the Great Beyond" either.  _Back to the drawing board_ , Hannah thought. She grumpily dragged Josh's feet back to his own room.

 

The conversation with the doctor wouldn’t stop rattling in Chris’s brain. _Does your family have a history of somnambulism?_ Sleepwalking, Chris knew. _Have you ever experienced sleepwalking before? Did your parents ever mention anything?_ They hadn’t, and Chris relayed that information, though why the doctor had even asked, he wasn’t sure. The doctor hadn’t even gone any further with that line of questioning. He just nodded and moved on to other personal (uncomfortable) questions. He was starting to understand Josh’s dislike of therapy. Chris was feeling disinclined to it himself after just one session.

Every answer he gave felt uncertain and bitter on his tongue, even though the doctor ensured that there were “no wrong answers when it came to his own cognition.” He felt like he had to censor things. Edit. It didn’t help that the honesty he had given the ranger service got him here. So with the doctor, he stayed guarded. Aloof. Dismissive, but in part because he was still in his head about seeing Ashley. So maybe he wasn’t entirely “present” for the meeting. Maybe that was the reason the doctor hadn’t cleared him.

Chris dragged his feet through the halls, eyes glued to the floor. He’d completely forgotten about Jess’s advice, so it neither helped nor hurt him. At any rate, taking Jess’s advice would have been like pulling teeth. He had a hard time admitting he was wrong when he actually _was_ wrong, but he wasn’t wrong about what really happened on the mountain. So, the Wendigos stayed real in his mind and in his testimony. Chris’s stay was to be extended. The max was fourteen days, with opportunity to be released earlier. Chris acquiesced, if only to get out of that office sooner. How bad could it be if Ashley was staying too? He didn’t know for sure if she was—and finding her was even more important because of that—but they’d survived the mountain together. It seemed right that they would survive this together.

He popped his neck satisfyingly. Back to finding Ashley.

He was almost jittery when he found her in the rec room, scrapping a game of solitaire. “Ashley,” he sighed reverently.

She didn’t react. Chris had to admit: his imagination might have gone a little overboard, picturing waltzing up to her, grabbing her attention by calling her name, then grabbing her waist to pull her in for a kiss. He cleared his throat as quietly as possible, hoping to still open with her name without being noticed until then. “Ashley?” his voice cracked, because of course it did. This time she did turn to the sound, for better or worse.

She laughed. _At least she still thinks I’m funny_. Chris told himself as he watched her tap the deck of cards on the table before rising from it to face him. Her eyes were pure honey in green tea, impossibly unblemished by flecks of any other color. Chris was in awe of them, as he was every time he saw them, but he didn’t have time to linger now. Without so much as another breath, he leaned in and captured Ashley’s lips with his own.

There, he saw Ashley’s irises clearer and closer than he ever had because she widened them in surprise before her eyes fluttered closed. He shut his eyes, too, determined to commit this moment to his memory.

 _Perfect_ , he thought to himself when they parted, but the vibration of his vocal cords registered in his brain, and he realized that he’d said it out loud.

Heat rushed to his face, and before either of them said another word, Chris just ran away. Thus began the internal arguing with himself about why he decided to leave. _What the hell?_ He looked to his feet, as if demanding an answer from them, but they (obviously) said nothing in return. _Perfect?_   _Jesus Christ, what am I doing? I’m ruining it. This is ruined. Who kisses someone and then runs away? Can I still turn back? Nope. Too late. Idiot._ Chris sighed. _Didn’t even ask how the meeting went. Stupid, stupid_ —

Chris’s shoulder collided harshly with another resident’s, a guy holding a stack of bright pink flyers.

Or, he was holding them. Until they scattered across the floor when Chris bumped into him.

With profuse apologies, Chris crouched to help gather the papers. Checking the stranger’s reaction, he realized that it was the guy who looked around the same age as him in Group. Chris couldn’t have forgotten his name if he tried.

“Lester, right?” Chris initiated.

“That’s me,” Lester grunted to slide the farthest flyer into his pile before giving a civil closed-lip smile. They rose at the same time, and with his hand out for Chris’s share of the flyers, Lester endeavored, “In a hurry?”

Chris promptly obliged, noticing the announcement on the page, “Uh, something like that. Yeah. Sorry… again.”

Lester offered a half-smile, but his demeanor seemed genuinely friendlier, if not slightly amused after Chris’s thirtieth apology, “Don’t sweat it, Chris.” Chris gave a sigh of relief. Lester added offhandedly, “You’re a lot nicer than the last person I met from your little group.”

“My group?”

“I like to keep an eye out. There’s eight of you, right? Or there was. Quarterback dipped.” Chris huffed, impressed by the apt moniker for Matt. “I know you and Jess, but this one… she wasn’t the warmest.”

Chris understood immediately, and laughed. “Emily.”

“Emily,” Lester repeated. Chris swore he saw a glint in his eye, and wondered briefly what his codename for Emily had been before he knew her name. He offered a single flyer back to Chris, and flashed a smile that rivaled the Cheshire Cat before departing.

Chris pulled his eyebrows together, but then a smile overcame his face. He decided that he could use some mystery and confidence like Lester. Chris consciously slackened his pace. Chris was going to own his kiss. And when he walked to lunch with Ashley after Group tomorrow, he wouldn’t try to explain himself. He didn’t need to.

 

Ashley tossed and turned in bed. One more night, and she would be in her own bed, in her own room, in her own pajamas, but she wasn’t thinking about that.

She was thinking about how she really needed to talk to Chris. He'd kissed her out of nowhere, and then he barely said anything before he bolted. But then again, Ashley supposed she had done similarly, back in the lodge.

> _“He let all of us down,” Ashley uttered in the spur of the moment._
> 
> _Chris’s response was immediate, “I don’t care. I’m going to get him.” Only after he spoke did Ashley see Chris battle through a miasma of emotions in the aftermath of Ashley’s declaration—pain, disappointment, frustration, defeat, offense, opposition. Then, he turned to the unknown man with unshakable determination._
> 
> _Ashley felt a twinge in her stomach. Despite sitting flanked by her Sam and Emily on the couch, she felt terribly lonely all of a sudden. She registered Sam checking on her, but Ashley’s mind was distracted going through the entire night. When she woke up disoriented in the dark, bound to a wall, Chris was the one who found her. Chris had become her savior. When there were saws screaming over their heads, he pointed a gun at himself. She clung to him and he risked his life, maybe because he knew he was too stubborn to die._
> 
> _But Ashley wasn’t. And if she had to be apart from Chris, apart from her rock, she needed to hold onto something until he returned._
> 
> _Chris and the outsider weren’t standing in front of her anymore. Ashley abandoned her place on the couch to find them, letting her friends’ protests and confusion perish in the air. She found them talking quietly by the exit._
> 
> _“Hey…” and he looked at her. “Come back safe,” and she kissed him._

She kissed Chris because she needed strength. He was leaving, she was staying. Her fingers ghosted over her own lips. He didn’t say goodbye tonight, he said “perfect.”

But then, she hadn’t said goodbye either when she kissed him. She breathed a sigh of enchantment; he was recreating the moment, their moment, reversing their roles because he must have found out she was leaving, and he must be staying.

Ashley decided then that didn’t need to talk to Chris in the morning. She would see him soon enough, when they were both back home.

She didn’t notice when she’d stopped tossing and turning, but her eyelids were heavy, and she felt herself melt into the mattress.


	6. Endurance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hannah revamps her plan. Things catch up with Josh and Emily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! :)

Josh fought the urge to unleash a stream of obscenities when Hannah separated from him. The look on Hannah’s face was innocence and hope and foretold good news, and he was eager to hear what she had to say. First he just had to get over the tightness of his chest.

It wasn’t a big deal. Josh only started to notice it a few days ago. Every time Hannah “phased” into or out of him, it just caused some pressure. Tingling first, then pressure once she made contact, he saw white, then nothing, and then the next thing he knew, he was back and Hannah was out. It really wasn’t a big deal. Josh could handle it. For Hannah. The withdrawals from when he’d stopped taking his medication were worse, but he’d done that to see his sisters too, once upon a dark time. Plus, it was kinda like sleeping, like stepping off the world while it turned, and not being missed, or worried, or worried _about,_ because physically, Josh was still there.

It passed, like it always did, and Josh perched on the edge of his bed. Hannah was already talking animatedly. _Ha, animatedly. Spiritedly. Ha! Mental high-five! I should probably be listening._

“… so I don’t give a crap what you say, Operation: Hartington is a go.”

“Uh, ye- no, sorry, what?”

Hannah looked unamused, “Hartley, Washington… Hartington.”

“You’re going after Chris now?” Josh scrunched up his face.

“No, you are!”

Josh felt a band of warmth spread across his face, from ear to ear.

“Not like that, Josh,” Hannah mended, though she did a double take with her brow furrowed. “I meant what I said. I don’t think I’m here for me. I think I’m here for you. I don’t think I trust you on your own, so you won’t be on your own when I leave this time.” And she meant it as a joke, Josh knew, but it stung a little.

“You don’t… have to leave,” Josh appealed, but his inflection made it sound like a question.

Hannah gave him a sympathetic look, and part of Josh hated it. Then, Hannah crossed her arms, but she was smiling, “Don’t start with me, mister. I have eternal happiness and peace waiting for me. Probably. And bottomless bowls of Cocoa Pebbles…” Josh rolled his eyes reflexively.

Hannah was obsessed with Cocoa Pebbles. When they were younger, Josh was sure that Hannah would have picked Fruity Pebbles, for all the colors. But he had a theory that because Beth declared her love for the fruity rice cereal first, Hannah was determined to be different. Josh remembered them fighting in front of him, both trying to convince him that their favorite was supreme. When the time came for his verdict, Josh just mixed them. He poured both cereals into his bowl, added milk, and listened with pride to the crunch of a spoonful of sugary cereal over the sounds of his sisters’ mutual disgust at him.   

> _“You ruined it, Josh!” Hannah whined, harmonizing Beth’s “Ugh, so dumb.”_
> 
> _“Beth! Language.” Their mom disciplined._

“And Babbitt!” Hannah exclaimed loud enough to momentarily return Josh to the present.

Josh snorted. Babbitt was Hannah’s beloved stuffed animal rabbit. Josh got it for her for Christmas one year (or begged his mom to buy it for her in his stead) when they were really young. Like really young, before she could pronounce “rabbit” correctly. It—he—had gotten lost somewhere in their house.

Ironically, Josh found out years later (from bibliophile Ashley) that _Babbitt_ was also a novel by Sinclair Lewis about middle-class conformity. Whatever. It meant Hannah’s first extra-familial best friend (BSG, Before Sam Giddings) to Josh. He had half a mind to look for the stuffed animal when they got home.

When _he_ got home.

“And Beth. Eternal happiness. And peace.” Hannah said with finality.

“Probably,” Josh echoed in a whisper.

 

The next morning, Josh walked out of Group to find Chris, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

“ _What’s he doing?_ ” Hannah whispered, despite Josh being the only person who could hear her anyway.

Chris was scanning every face that exited the room, all nervous energy trying to suppress more nervous energy. “He’s looking for Ashley,” Josh answered somberly.

“She left this morning,” Hannah responded, confused.

“What?” Josh reared back into the vacated room.

Hannah just blinked at him, “Yeah. She left with Mike and Sam.”

Josh was wondering why she wasn’t in Group, talking about nightmares or guilt or something. The group leader said nothing about it though, and Josh didn’t feel like asking. Josh peered out of the doorway at Chris.

“Man, he’s gonna be so disappointed,” he said with a tsk.

“Great!” Hannah exclaimed, causing Josh to whip around to her again.

“ _What? Why is that great?_ ” Josh whisper-yelled.

“ _Because now he has you! Operation: Hartington!_ ” She whisper-yelled back.

“Stop saying that.”

“Stop forgetting it’s our mission.”

“Stop.”

“Make me.”

“Would you stop?” Josh’s voice broke into a normal volume as he turned back to check on Chris, only to see that his directive caused Chris to freeze in the doorway.

“… Sorry?” Chris said, though it didn’t sound like he meant it.

 _I hate you, Hannah._ Josh hoped that she knew. He cleared his throat, “No, sorry, uh…” Josh reeled for a somewhat believable lie. His eyes landed on the circle of chairs still in the middle of the room, “I thought you were that guy who’s always trying to help put the chairs away.” Josh took a deep breath. Chris pursed his lips, highly suspicious. “I like doing it,” Josh added.

“What guy?” Chris bit the bait, and Josh was grateful.

“Brown hair. Blue eyes. Equal parts roguish and brooding. _Lester_ ,” Josh said, full of mock spite. He started a stack of chairs against the far wall.

Chris joined him. “I have Group with him. He seems pretty cool. Not a fan?”

Josh contemplated with a pout, tilting his head left and right like he was weighing the question in his mind. He resolved to grunt noncommittally.

“He's in for a suicide attempt,” Chris threw out, and then he froze again, “I don’t know why I said that.”

He couldn’t look at Josh, and Josh wanted to hate him for it. “A man after my own heart,” he said sarcastically. Chris started moving again. Hannah made a strangled noise, and Josh’s eyes went to her. She didn’t know about _that_. She probably just thought they were talking about the mountain. He caught her gaze and held it, trying to communicate an _it’s okay, it's fine._

They continued stacking chairs in companionable silence. The stack was growing higher, and Josh was grateful for Chris again when he took the last chair. The last time Josh had done it, he was with Ashley, and the memory of it made his shoulder hurt all over again.

“ _Dammit_ ,” Chris whispered as he wrestled with the chair. One of the legs went through the other chairs wrong, and now it was stuck.

Josh let him knock the chair around a little more before Hannah jerked her head in Chris’s direction. Josh moved in to help, “Here, it’s—”

“I got it—” Chris assured at the same time, but then the chair slipped and somehow Josh ended up getting hit right in his shoulder wound.

“Ah!” Josh backed away as the chair finally fell into place with a clatter. Chris’s triumphant look quickly became a sorry one seeing Josh clutch his shoulder.

Suddenly, Chris’s palm was pressed lightly to Josh’s chest, and Josh’s heart was beating faster. Because he got hit. Not because of the hand on his heart.

Chris jerked his hand away, chuckling a little. It was quiet, and when Josh’s heart stopped pounding in his ears, he chanced a look at Chris. He was… smirking. “Was that me or the chair?” he said, barely holding back laughter.

Josh couldn’t stop laughter from bubbling up at the inside joke. Between gasps for breath, Josh saw Chris wiping at eyes and Hannah with her eyebrow raised in confusion. Her eyebrow returned to level like she realized something. She was unamused again. She knew Josh only laughed like that about certain things.

“This is a fart joke isn’t it,” she deadpanned.

It was. Josh shook his head, trying to deny it in spite of the tears at the corners of his eyes and the heat in his face from laughing.

To be more specific, it was a reference to Queen Latifah in _Scary Movie 3_.

> _“Why aren’t we watching 1 and 2 first?” Chris asked._
> 
> _“Because we’re watching this one first,” Josh delivered. Chris side-eyed him as the title came on the screen in red: SCARY MOVIE 3. “Just trust me, Cochise.” Met with silence, Josh wrapped his arm around Chris to squeeze him, “Come on…” Josh started shaking him slightly until Chris broke into a grin. “There he is!”_

The memory of laughing blended into the present hilarity, and Hannah remarked, “You ruined it, Josh…”

“So dumb,” Josh said with a satisfied sigh.

 

Hannah was ecstatic. It took a while, but when it dawned on her, Hannah couldn't believe how _naive_ she'd been before. Mike was not even there for most of the times that she lost control of the possession and was ejected. Someone else was, though.

Chris.

The very first time she was pushed out, it was because of freezing cold water in the mines. A shock to the system, so to speak. Every other time after that, Chris was there. When he came into Josh’s hospital room, when they crashed into each other after group therapy, when he lifted Josh off of the floor—they were all moments that threw Josh off. It was about Josh, something about Josh and Chris, not her.

The plan was going smoothly. Josh and Chris walked to lunch together, still laughing like idiots from time to time. Correction: they were idiots, but… Hannah did break and laugh once or twice herself. Laughter’s contagious! And seeing Josh happy made her all giddy already.

Chris’s face became plaintive, both Hannah and Josh noticed. He must have realized that he was caught because Chris sighed. “I was just...” he started explaining, and he sighed again, “Ashley went home, didn’t she?”

Josh’s face fell, but he caught it and held it in a serious expression instead of one of dejection at the topic change. “Yeah,” Josh said softly. Hannah knew he hated being the bearer of bad news, but she listened as he went on, “Are you… okay?”

“Yeah! Yeah, ’m fine,” Chris nodded generously. _He ought to know by now that his overcorrecting makes it more obvious that he’s not fine_ , Hannah mused.

“Dude, you’re overcompensating,” Josh nudged, and Hannah was impressed. She shouldn’t have been, though. Josh had two teenage sisters once. He had to have some emotional intelligence, even as an idiot brother. _More than some…_ Hannah corrected herself. She stared at Josh as he continued giving Chris words of support and smiles, despite the shift away from their goofing off. _Who takes care of Josh?_

Hannah smiled at the look on Josh’s face when he was finally rewarded with a laugh from Chris.

“… I missed you,” Chris confessed.

Josh hooked an arm around Chris’s neck, “Me too. I missed me too.” Chris pushed him off, laughing. Josh laughed too.

Josh looked to Hannah like he was making sure she was still there. His laugh trailed off, and concern etched into his face again. Hannah didn’t know why until she blinked and a few tears fell down her cheeks. She wiped her face and shook her head dismissively. Hannah's smile brought back his smile, and Josh turned his attention back to his best friend.

 

“I forgive you,” Emily said conclusively, and a little exasperatedly, as her lunch tray clacked against the table Chris and Josh were at.

Chris registered that she was looking at him, and stammered, “Uh, thank… you?”

“You’re welcome,” Emily said. She looked at Jess, who was sitting down to join them as well, “It was pretty simple,” she turned to Chris again, “I know you didn’t mean to not defend me in the basement.” Her eyes went to Josh next, “Since we’re the only four left, we have to stick together.”

“For… what?” Josh leaned in.

“We have a common enemy,” Emily said simply.

Now Chris was intrigued, “And that is…?”

“The talent show!” Emily answered, more impatiently.

Chris remembered the flyer Lester handed to him. He opened his mouth to offer a soundless “oh” and nodded.

Josh spoke up next, “I’m mostly up in arms against the guy who organized it.”

“Yes! Thank you, Josh. Thank. You. Some sense,” she directed the comment at Jess, who shrugged.

“He’s irrelevant, we’ll never even see him again, and he’s just trying to do something nice for all the residents,” Jess defended in way that made it clear that she and Emily had argued about it before, giving Chris a _little help, partner_ look.

Chris swallowed, eyes on Emily. _Digging my own grave,_ Chris thought futilely, _she just forgave me, and I didn’t even know I was in trouble._ “Lester’s nice, I don’t get why you two don’t like him.”

“Because he’s a douche!” Emily’s voice dropped to a whisper by the end of the declaration.

“Isn’t Mike kinda prone to douche tendencies also--?” Chris tried to appeal, but Jess’s widened eyes screamed _abort_.

“Exactly!” Emily shouted, and Jess whined proactively. “Jess, you need to break up with him. I don’t know what you see in him--”

“Probably the same thing you did,” Josh goaded.

Emily glared at him, “Whose side are you on, Washington.”

“I’m a chaotic neutral,” he smirked at Chris. Chris almost kissed him, but instead choked on nothing when he finally processed what he just thought. He wasn’t going to kiss Josh. Damn. He’d gone almost the whole day without thinking of that stupid dream. _Stupid D &D reference._

Josh pat his back, frowning worriedly. Chris held up a hand to say he was fine, and then gestured to tell Emily and Jess to go on, not that they needed his permission. He just desperately needed them to move past the moment.

“Are you okay?” Jess asked.

“Yes,” Chris replied. _Working on that overcompensating thing._

Jess persisted, “Are you sure because—”

“Yes!” Chris cut off. He cleared his throat, and amended “Yes. All good.” He bitterly wondered when everyone got so freaking concerned about his wellbeing. _Probably when we all almost died at the hands of wintry cannibal monsters,_ he answered himself.

“Oh… kay, partner,” Jess laughed, holding his water in front of him.

Chris grabbed it aggressively, which made everyone at the table laugh. Emily suddenly paled across from him. Josh seemed to notice too, judging from the cautious look on his face.

 

 _I’m going crazy. That’s the only explanation. I knew it. This place is making me crazy._ Emily painstakingly put down her plastic cutlery, and clasped her hands under the table to stop them from trembling.

“Emily?”

“I’m fine,” Emily looked at all three of them. She wasn’t sure which one of them had said her name. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jess offered.

“No. Stay.” Emily tried to ignore the room spiraling.

She walked as slowly as she could manage to keep up appearances. The chatter at lunch was starting to devolve into growling. The death rattle sound that signaled the croaky breathing of Wendigos. She knew they weren’t here. They couldn’t be. _This is ridiculous,_ she reprimanded herself. Her breathing was shallow as she pushed past the dining room doors with clammy hands. Another glaring pink flyer taunted her on the wall.

She stomped over to it. She tore it down and discarded it on the floor in a crumpled ball. A Wendigo sniffed the air in the corner of her eye. Jesus Christ. She stood frozen, squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them. The Wendigo was gone. Emily clenched her jaw, and took bigger, faster strides, focusing on breathing and getting to the bathroom.

A claw grabbed her shoulder and she screamed. It was going to take her. Bite her and rip her apart. She screamed as she grabbed its wrist and whipped around to slam it into the wall, “No—!” she roared, her other hand pushing against his neck.

His.

It was Lester with both of his fists up against the wall, though only the right one was raised of his own volition. She had stupid, smug Lester pinned against the wall by his neck and left wrist, panting almost as hard as she was. “Okay!” he choked out unevenly. There was genuine alarm in his eyes, and Emily felt his Adam’s apple move when he tried to swallow. He opened his hands in surrender, a crumpled ball of pink falling out of his right one and landing pathetically onto the floor. “Okay…” he said again, now a disarming whisper.

He was blurry, and Emily blinked tears out of her eyes to clear her vision and a sob escaped her lips. There were others in the hallway, now. She let Lester go, and he didn’t say anything. He just watched, bending at the knees ever so slightly to seek out Emily’s eyes. She wouldn’t look at him, though. Someone was talking to Lester, but he silenced them with an open hand. Emily stepped away with a hiccup, and escaped to the bathroom.

 

Chris, Josh, Jess, and Lester stood in the hallway for what felt like hours. Eventually, Jess disappeared into the ladies’ room and when she did, Chris approached Lester. The guy was still steadying his breathing. Looked like he might've conjured up a miserable, brooding cloud to loom over his head at any moment.

“You good, man?” Chris offered in a soft voice. The first time he’d asked, Chris got a stern hand up asking him to wait.

“What’d you do?” Another voice coarsely demanded. Chris shot a withering look at the question and found Josh its owner.

“Josh…” Chris said quietly, one part plea, two parts reproach.

Lester didn’t say anything, but he gave a look, both piteous and pitying, to Chris and Josh. Next, Chris followed his eyes to a crumpled talent show flyer on the floor. Lester bent over to retrieve it, and stormed off.

Chris waited until Lester was out of sight, and then faced Josh with the intention of scolding him. But when their eyes met, Josh looked like someone told him off already. Repentance poured out from his eyes, and before he knew it, Chris was comparing them to Ashley’s.

Both were green. But where Ashley’s eyes were limpid honey green tea, constant, uninterrupted, and spotless olive and gold, Josh’s were ever-changing viridian. At the moment, they were speckled jade, flecks of aquamarine breaking up the consistency… Chris’s grandparents were jewelers, so he took to gems and stones as descriptive tools. _Favorite grandson, nineteen years and counting._

Chris closed his mouth into a small smile, exhaling through his nose. Josh accurately took it as his pardon. As they walked away, Chris kept his eyes on the door Emily and Jess went through.

 

Emily studied herself in the mirror. Her eyes were red and watery, and a sheen of sweat covered her face. For a moment, she let her brow furrow and lower lip tremble, and then she breathed into a steely expression.

Her hands only unclenched after running them under the sink for a few seconds. Emily carefully brought cool water up to her face, still avoiding the fading bruise near her right temple.

She looked down at the sink to watch the water disappear down the drain. Emily’s shoulders relaxed. Her gaze returned to the mirror. A Wendigo scaled the corner of the ceiling. She squeezed her eyes shut, and a single tear slipped down her face in the process. She looked to the corner with the mirror again. No Wendigo.

Time passed—seconds, minutes, hours—and the restroom door swung open. Emily tried to stifle her reflexive jump. It was Jess.

“Hey…” she said.

Emily sniffled. “Hey.”

“You’re not okay,” Jess delivered carefully.

Emily didn’t answer. Her chin was quivering again. And finally, she shook her head. _I’m not okay._

Jess’s arms were around her, and Emily broke. She chipped, cracked, and crumbled, succumbing to wet sobs and anguish. They sank to the floor. “I- I heard her! I heard her laugh!” Emily wept.

“It’s okay, it’s okay…” Jess repeated like a prayer over and over as she held her. Firm, solid strength.

“I heard Hannah…” Emily knew her voice was hoarse, barely there, but she knew Jess heard it. As certainly as Emily knew she heard Hannah’s laugh in the dining room.


	7. Honesty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Adventure awaits for two ward residents. Truth comes out at the talent show.

Emily relished the sweet sound of her door clicking shut behind her. She was grateful that Jess sat with her on the bathroom floor (of questionable cleanliness) until she calmed down and cleaned up, but the peaceful silence in her room was another level of bliss.

But then, her eyes landed on an offensive pink wad in the center of her bed. Only one person would be stupid enough to put it in Emily’s room. She glared at it. It didn’t spontaneously combust or run away in fear. Emily groaned aloud, but curiosity compelled her to take up the paper ball. She took its place on the bed.

She tossed it from hand to hand, not proud of the memory of ripping it off the wall and crushing it just for existing. Emily sighed and began opening it back up.

There was writing on it. Emily frowned and ironed the paper flat with her hands.

_Leave after lights out._

Emily scoffed. Lights out was in six hours. She still had to get through dinner. Not that she was planning on doing anything that prick said anyway.

Dinner was an uneventful affair. Josh and Chris sat across the table, she and Jess were side by side. Emily had to admit, it was nice of the other three to act like nothing had happened at lunch, reminded her of home.

Josh and Chris were practically in each other’s pockets again. Sometimes, Emily felt bad for Ashley. Sometimes. If either of those two ever wised up, the poor girl had no chance. As it stood, though, neither of them seemed to possess the acuity of a doorknob.

Emily found herself looking around the room. Lester was making rounds or something, talking to people at every table. _He doesn’t even work here. The people who actually work here don’t even do that._ He sat down at one of the tables, deep in conversation with some grandma.

He must have felt someone watching him (not Emily) because his eyes left the woman’s face and met Emily’s. He returned his attention to the woman before the glare Emily was preparing was ready, but Emily was pretty sure he sat up taller.

She rolled her eyes. He had no shame. He was acting like he didn’t sneak into her room somehow and leave her a note like they were in the seventh grade. She tuned back into the table conversation.

“The talent show senior year!” Chris said emphatically, “I did that comedy routine where I was a circus strongman with IBS, and I even programmed one of my bots to--”

 _And we’re tuning back out_ , Emily thought, and her eyes roamed the room again. The woman was a cougar apparently. Emily watched her reach out and grab Lester’s hands with both of hers. Blush bloomed over Lester’s face and he gave a respectful nod. He must have made some stupid joke because he leaned in and they both were laughing.

“See? She’s smiling. It’s a good idea,” Jess said triumphantly.

Emily reset the scowl on her face. How long had she been smiling? “What?”

“You’ll play the piano for me while I sing for the talent show tomorrow, right?” Jess purred.

Emily had to suppress her visceral rejection of the idea; she was still vehemently opposed to any talent show. “Yep,” Emily forced out before taking a drink of water to make sure that something was going down and not coming up.

“Perfect! We’ll practice after this. I have the best idea for a song, we’re totally gonna win,” Jess announced.

“Talent shows don’t have winners, Jess,” Chris interjected.

“That’s what they tell the losers, Cochise,” Josh patted his shoulder affectionately. Emily snorted at Chris’s unamused face.

 

Emily collapsed onto her bed. Playing the piano again was… nice. She didn’t know why Jess picked the song she did—it was an old song—but she seemed very excited about it, and Emily already knew it, so she didn’t mind.

A wave of exhaustion overcame her. Suddenly, the little episode she’d had and the rehearsing caught up to her, and she felt her body sink further into the bed. She wondered fleetingly what time it was.

Emily took a deep breath and raised her head. It was heavier than expected, her neck stiffer, too. The clock’s hands pointed to twelve and five, and Emily shot up to a seated position. She had fallen asleep. It was over an hour after lights out. Emily hoisted herself out of bed and went for the door.

She thought of him sitting out there in the hallway, back against the wall, elbows on his knees, head lolling down. And then, he’d jerk his head back up with a sharp inhale at the sound of the door opening, like she wasn’t going catch him falling asleep. Emily paused, hand hovering over the door handle. Surely he wasn’t out there, waiting all that time. She adjusted her stance, and slowly opened the door.

The hallway was empty. Fine. Good. Emily wasn’t keen on the idea of roaming a psych ward at night just to silence her guilt; she was already hearing ghosts and seeing monsters. Emily let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. A huff, really. Of relief. She was mid eye-roll when a voice whispered.

“ _Hey_.”

Emily turned her head down the hall, and saw Lester peeking out from the bend of the corridor. He flashed a pearly white smile at her and waved her over. He looked like a five year old.

Emily ran down the hall, nearly colliding with Lester.

“ _So eager_ ,” he whispered.

Emily made a hushed sound of disgust, “ _I think that’s a record. I’ve never regretted a decision this fast._ ” Lester gave a patronizing smirk, arms crossed. Emily defended, “ _You were the one flagging me down like a kid who saw Santa!_ ”

“ _I didn’t tell you that you had to run_ ,” he practically sang.

“ _I don’t spend a lot of time sneaking around psych wards after hours. I don’t spend time in psych wards, period. I don’t know the rules_ ,” Emily air-quoted ‘rules.’

Lester didn’t respond. He just moved forward to take Emily’s hand. She jerked away from him. Lester tilted his head and lowered his eyelids, a wordless _really_. Emily shot him a look of annoyance. He grabbed her hand again, and Emily deigned to let it happen.

He dragged her through the corridors, pausing and crouching every so often, until they were in front of a room Emily hadn’t been in before. As soon as he released her hand, Emily crossed her arms. Lester approached the door like some professional cat burglar. He jostled the door handle, and it clicked obediently. He held the door with one hand, and gestured inside the dark room with the other.

Emily raised her eyebrow and shook her head. Lester scowled (like a five year old) and let go of the door, which stayed open. He tilted his head again, this time with squinted eyes: _really?!_ he conveyed, but Emily didn’t budge. With a tsk, he walked across the threshold and his right hand went to the wall. A switch clicked and lights illuminated what appeared to be a break room.

Emily watched Lester’s back as he went to the center of the room. There, he spun around to face her, and extended his arms out in a halfhearted ta-da.

Emily’s eyes cast down, somewhat apologetic. But it wasn’t like she was irrationally paranoid after what she’d been through. She stepped into the room, and Lester walked back over to close the door.

“I wasn’t planning on murdering you,” he was speaking at a normal volume now, though it was still softer, less acerbic, than Emily had ever heard it. Maybe he got tired carrying whatever chip he had on his shoulder.

He pulled out a chair at the table in the room, eyebrows raised marginally.

“Jury’s still out,” Emily mused, taking the seat. Across from the offered one. Lester scoffed, and pushed the chair back in. He walked over to an overhead cupboard to retrieve two mugs, and then pulled a bottle of whiskey from another. “Why do I get the impression that you’ve spent more than a little time here?”

“Ah, you’re an perceptive gal,” he breathed with effortless charm. He placed the bottle on the table and went to pull open the fridge, “Ice?” he offered.

“No.”

Lester swung the fridge closed, skeptical but impressed. He sat in the chair right next to Emily. She crossed her arms again, and he chuckled.

“I feel like… you deserve a drink,” Lester’s tone seemed warmer. The sound of whiskey falling into ceramic filled the momentary silence. Lester held a mug in front of Emily like it was his version of an olive branch, and she examined it. She uncrossed her arms, poured both mugs together, and downed it.

Lester was agape, betraying his persona of unshakable charisma. He took a pull from the handle to recover.

He wiped the back of his hand over his mouth, and attempted a subtle sidelong glance at Emily. It seemed like his façade went down with Emily’s drink. He was less… polished. Like when Emily had him pinned to the wall.

Emily relaxed her shoulders, “I’m sorry… for—”

“Calling me a douche?” Lester supplied. Emily gave a suspicious glare, and Lester added, “Sound travels really well in the dining room.” He made a show of pointing his middle finger up at the ceiling, “It’s the acoustics…” an impish grin broke onto his face as his pointing transitioned into flipping her off.

“You-- know I meant… what happened in the hallway,” she muttered. Emily’s blood deliberately disobeyed her and rushed to her face. Keeping her eyes on the wall in front of her, she opened her hand to ask for the bottle of whiskey. She needed to hold something to get the memory of Lester’s pulse pounding in her grip out of her head.

“Oh… that…” Lester whispered with exaggerated nodding. He passed the bottle, and Emily’s lips hesitantly grazed the bottle’s before she took a swig. Silence fell around them. He shrugged. “Wasn’t your fault,” he stated, and it sounded sincere.

Emily placed the bottle on the table. After a moment, Lester leaned his forearms onto the table, and turned his head back to face Emily. He looked to the ceiling, as if working up the nerve to say something, and he finally blurted out, “I go by Bucky… It's a, uh, nickname.”

Emily pulled her eyebrows together, but stopped when she acknowledged the vulnerability of his face. Really, it was the only display of his vulnerability that was deliberate on his part. Emily searched for something decent to say, something with the same decency she couldn’t deny he had while caught in her warpath. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, settling on, “Really?”

“Mm,” he swallowed another swig of whiskey, “it's my last name--Buchanan, like the president?” He shifted uneasily in his seat, eyes on the bottle.

It was endearing, like seeing his humanity for the first time, or some nonsense like that. In the silence, Lester offered the bottle of whiskey. Emily took it and chuckled, “So where'd 'Lester' come from?”

Lester let out a single, sharp laugh, ousting his nerves, “My parents suck at names.”

“Ha!” Emily raised the bottle in the air before bringing it to her smile again for another sip. She blinked, but it felt like it happened so slowly. It was like the alcohol was in her eye muscles, slowing them down. Emily lifted the bottle to gauge how much they’d had. It probably wouldn’t go unnoticed by the staff if they saw it, but they didn’t seem the type to study their bottles of alcohol. Still… “We should probably…”

“Yeah,” Lester agreed, rising to replace the bottle and wash the mugs they barely used.

While he dried the mugs, Emily inquired, “Why didn't you just introduce yourself as Bucky in the first place?”

He paused, eyes darting around a little, “I… use my first name as a deterrent, kinda.” He exhaled.

Emily narrowed her eyes, offended, “You didn’t think we would be friends?”

“You did?” he volleyed back. He smiled with his teeth again.

Emily looked away, but smiled back. “Fair enough. What should I call you now, then?” The mugs were safely restored to their rightful place.

“Whichever,” Lester said with a shrug. He closed the cupboard, the action rendered inadvertently slower upon making eye contact with Emily.

Emily held his gaze and, after much consideration, declared, "I'm gonna keep using Lester." Lester's brow furrowed. Emily smirked, "It suits your uninviting personality."

Lester shook his head, but Emily saw the amused smile on his face.

Emily kept thinking that he was going to part ways with her on the way back (they didn’t hold hands this time), but pretty soon they were both outside of her door.

She didn’t know if the silence was situational--being out in the echoing corridor after hours--or something else. She tried to find the answer in his eyes, and that was when she discerned that his eyes were on her lips. Emily’s eyes automatically went to his lips in return. He inched forward, and Emily felt herself being pulled in by the smooth, full lips.

His lips pulled at Emily's every fiber. And then they pulled the barely audible words “ _I have a boyfriend_ ,” out of her. Lester froze.

Emily saw his tongue swipe across his lips, “ _Good night_ ,” he whispered instead and he pulled away. He stepped one foot back, and Emily mirrored him. Their eyes met, he bowed his head, and with a wave, he was leaving.

Emily stepped into her room, and the door clicked with a finality that pushed a breath from her lungs. Her eyes went to the wrinkled flyer on her bed.

She understood why the color bothered her so much. The color reminded her of his lips.

 

> “What are you saying?” Josh narrowed his eyes as he spoke. He swiftly undid his tie and the top two buttons of his shirt, but his eyes remained on Chris, burning holes into his soul.
> 
> Chris was suddenly nervous in his own home. He swallowed, “That uh… I don’t like them?” At the mirror in the hallway, he occupied himself with assessing the damages done by the festivities. Chris and Josh had been the last to leave Sam’s Halloween shindig. Hannah and Beth didn’t count; they were spending the night at Sam’s.
> 
> The product in his hair had lost most of its hold, and he brushed through his hair idly to make something of it.
> 
> “ _Don’t like them?_ We’re talking about horror movies. The horror genre,” Josh clarified, and Chris wished he hadn’t felt the freedom to speak his mind about the subject when they were getting out of his car. Josh dove onto the couch with a contented sigh as the cushions gently hissed under him.
> 
> Thinking about it, Chris just wasn’t very interested in the genre. He understood the argument in support of horror: that they provided the thrill of danger contained in ninety-or-so-minute packages, the unifying “common humanity” of it, feeling empathy for a protagonist against impossible odds…
> 
> “…the mouse finally figuring out how to beat the cat at its own game!” Josh finished, waving his arms before placing them behind his head and leaning back into the couch.
> 
> “I’d rather watch Tom & Jerry for that,” Chris shrugged, backing away from the mirror to face Josh.
> 
> “You… really? Tom and—we’re watching a scary movie,” Josh grunted as he rocked himself off the couch, arms outstretched toward Chris’s laptop. He typed furiously on the keyboard, and Chris swore he saw a sparkle in his eye by the screen’s blue light. He mumbled, “How have we been friends this long and…” He shook his head, but there was still amusement in his eyes, “I blame myself!” Josh looked right at him, gauging his reaction, and Chris gave Josh an eye-roll that oddly had Josh gratified.
> 
> Chris glanced up at the cable box’s digital clock. _2:37 AM_. His eyes sang weary songs about pining for sleep. “What are we gonna watch?” Chris asked warily.
> 
> Josh simply gave him a knowing look, and raised an eyebrow saying _challenge accepted_. He smirked before replying, “I’ll give you options. It’s still technically Halloween night, so _Halloween_ has to be in the running. Jamie Lee Curtis, jack-o-lanterns, masked serial killer, atmospheric soundtrack, classic…or if you’re feeling meta, _Scream_ or _Cabin in the Woods_ , but those honestly get better the more you understand the genre.”
> 
> “Do any of these have a happy ending?” Chris interrupted.
> 
> “Does _life_ have happy endings?” Josh posed in response. Chris adjusted his glasses to turn his nose down at Josh. He seemed to get the message (message being:  _I hate you_ ) because Josh gave answering another shot, “Yes, some do end happily, but happiness is temporary. _And_ subjective, y’know? One could argue that they all have happy endings from the right perspective…” Josh pouted, like he always did when he got contemplative.
> 
> Chris threw a pillow at him, but he deflected it. _Piece of shit_. “Not in my house!” Josh yelled at the pillow.
> 
> “Josh, you’re in my house,” Chris deadpanned, scooting Josh over to plop by his side and watch the laptop screen.
> 
> “Our house,” Josh beamed.
> 
> Chris focused on the screen, biting his lip. The movie titles and posters definitely didn’t foreshadow any happy endings, from any perspective.

 

“Do you want to go see a movie? Like, when we get out of here?” Chris proposed, watching Josh across from him, deeply concentrated on mashing a bowl of red Jell-O to pulp. Chris became transfixed for a moment by the color of Josh’s fingernails—they were inexplicably dark purple. In fact, his entire person had an air of fatigue, like somehow energy was being siphoned from him, draining him of color other than purple and gray. Chris made a mental note, but ignored the itch to bring it up immediately.

Brow furrowed, Josh muttered, “Asking me on a date, Cochise?” As soon as he said it, Josh stiffened and cast wild eyes over to the vacant seat on his side like he was looking to someone for help. Only, there was no one there.

“I haven’t been in a while. I miss it… I think,” Chris salvaged, knowing Josh went through that sometimes--seeing something no one else saw.

Josh seemed grateful for the sidestep, and chuckled dryly, “You miss passive-aggressively pressing your shoes into the backs of seats because the people in them are _exhibiting poor theatergoer etiquette_?”

Chris hoped his mind powers would successfully push the blood away from coloring his face, “I was stretching! These legs are a blessing and a curse. You’re the one who actually called out couples for making out during critical moments.”

“Remember that time it was Mike and Emily?” Josh laughed out loud now. They cracked up at the memory. When it died down, Josh nodded, “Sure. We’ll go see a movie.”

Chris grinned, and Josh went back at his gelatin. Chris spoke up again, “Any idea what Jess’s song might be?”

He was genuinely curious. Honestly, before this trip, he couldn’t have cared less about what song Jess might want to sing for an audience. He didn’t even know she could sing at all before all of this. But believing she was dead and then spending every day with her after finding out she wasn’t, talking about anything and everything under the sun and in their heads? She was way more complex and kind than she let on. Chris felt like he was almost ready to indefinitely share his location tracking with her on Find My Friends. The true mark of friendship.

Josh shrugged, “No clue, man.”

“Think it can beat us?” Chris bantered.

“No way, man,” Josh grinned proudly.

Their act was basically a lip sync performance to “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen. It involved a lot of air guitar showmanship, synchronized knee slides, and head banging. It was mostly head banging.

 

Chris was sweating by the time the song ended. Even doing the truncated version, his knees were probably bruised and his neck was sore. The whole song probably would have killed him. It was awesome. He missed this. Messing around with his best friend. For the moment, dancing and lip-syncing like a fool, Chris forgot everything that had happened. It was just him and Josh, doing an overly theatrical, perhaps more than slightly dorky, 100% entertaining duo performance.

After the award-winning show, he and Josh took their seats. Josh had a coughing fit that made Chris wince, but he still held his tongue, settling for patting Josh's shoulder. He was afraid to upset the delicate balance while it was tipping toward good times.

Acts came and went. Chris expected Lester to participate in some way, shape, or form, but he never did. Chris figured he planned the whole thing as a farewell gift, then. He looked over at Lester, leaning against a wall with a contented smile on his face. At least he’d stayed for the entire show. Finally, it was Jess and Emily onstage with a piano and microphone.

“Hello,” Jess grinned. _She means business_ , Chris thought.

“Dude, she’s out for blood,” Josh laughed into his ear.

“I’d like to dedicate this song to a very dear friend of mine in the audience…” Jess made a spectacle of scanning faces, and she stopped right on Chris to smile wickedly. Embarrassment and anxiety percolated through him. Jess signaled to Emily, and Emily played the intro.

Josh was whispering something, but Chris didn’t hear it. He was too busy regretting the moment he, Christopher Hartley, snatched Jessica Riley’s letter to one Michael Munroe out of her hands not even a week ago. _Revenge is swift_ , Chris thought grimly.

 _Maybe it won’t be so bad_ , Chris hoped. He still couldn’t place the song, but maybe it wouldn’t be something totally mortifying. He and Jess were closer than ever. He hadn’t even read her letter at all! Jess sang the first line, almost hauntingly, and Chris felt his heart plunge to his gut.

Chris cursed inwardly. It was “Dream a Little Dream of Me.” Chris knew the second he told her about that dream on Wednesday that she would lord it over him. He was sweating again. Josh was completely clueless, and somehow that made it worse. Jess didn’t know how the dream actually ended. He wondered if she would have done this if she did. Chris didn’t pick up on it until he saw Josh wet his lips absentmindedly, but he was staring at Josh. Chris shook his head and huffed.

He was so close, Chris was sure of it, so close to forgetting all about that dream. And here it was again, rearing its nonsensical, utterly absurd head, making Chris want to never see Josh again, but at the same time stare at him. So, Chris stared and stared. He stared until Josh probably felt it because he turned to Chris, and he looked away, stood up, and left…

Applause drowned out his calls to Josh's retreating figure. The talent show was over.

Jess won.

 

“What’s wrong?” Hannah repeated for perhaps the fiftieth time since he’d stormed out of the talent show.

 _Everything_ , Josh thought bitterly. 

> _Josh slept soundly, unlike the other first nights he spent in a psych ward in his life. Must’ve tired himself out with all the “psycho” business. This was his first time in a Canadian ward, though. Maybe that was it. Canada. Earth's sleep aid._
> 
> _Whatever it was, he was sleeping soundly. Or, he was until Josh was stirred from his slumber by the unmistakable click of his door opening. He sleepily disposed of any faith in the facility’s security in that moment because what psych ward had no locks on the resident rooms?_
> 
> _“Hannah?” He whispered, sleep still insulating his larynx. She did promise to start using doors instead of her annoying jump scare tactic._
> 
> _Josh got no response, save for the sound of footfalls. The sound was evidence enough that his guest wasn’t Hannah, though. Hannah’s ghostly form made no sound when she traveled, hence the frustrating sneak attacks. No, it was someone else._
> 
> _Josh blinked repeatedly, adjusting his eyes to resolve the shadow growing as it neared his bed. An irrational part of his mind went straight to the beast that attacked him, dragged him from the shed to the tunnels, almost killed him, the monster that had Hannah's tattoo. It found him.He wasn't meant to escape. It came to take him back._
> 
> _But it wasn't. It was Chris, saying absolutely nothing as he approached Josh, leaned in, eyes closed, and--_

Josh felt a hand on his shoulder bring him back to the present. “You good?” Chris asked lightly.

Josh shook him off roughly.

“Whoa. Okay,” Chris took a step back.

Josh frowned at the lack of privacy being in a mental hospital. He exhaled, “Come with me,” and Josh pulled Chris by the hand before he could answer.

Josh tried a random door handle, and it surprisingly yielded. It looked like a break room. With the door closed behind them, Josh released Chris’s hand and rounded on him, “Why are you acting so weird lately?”

Chris jumped, “What are you talking about?”

“You’re… you- you keep… I don’t know, _looking_ at me—!” Josh ran a hand through his hair.

“I’m _looking_ at you?” Chris challenged. _Fine, okay, that wasn’t weird_ , Josh admitted to himself.

“Josh, you don’t have to--” Hannah entreated.

“The _way_ you are looking at me!” he clarified in the rage Hannah was no doubt attempting to prevent.

“You messed with our heads, Josh! After almost a year of radio silence! I watched you die!” Hannah gasped. “I’m sorry if I can’t look at you the same!” Chris’s voice cracked.

“That is _not_ what I’m talking about,” Josh growled.

“Josh…” Hannah warned.

“Then what are you talking about?” Chris demanded.

“You kissed me!” Josh finally shouted.

“What?!” Chris and Hannah both shouted back. Chris exhaled sharply and went on, “I- I… Okay, I had a dream that I,” his voice lowered, “ _kissed you_ ,” and his voice raised again, “but that’s all it was! That’s why I’ve been acting weird!”

“It wasn’t a dream, Chris! It got me sick! _You_ got me sick! It wasn’t a dream,” Josh argued.  _Was it?_ “It wasn’t…”

Chris was speechless, breathing heavily through his nose. “When?” he finally pushed out, eyes fixated on the floor.

Josh was somewhat glad for the lack of eye contact. Made it easier to think. “First night here,” he declared resolutely. It wouldn’t help to cast any doubt. When he looked, Hannah had her hand over her mouth like a concerned parent. She reminded Josh of their mom. Her eyes told that she was trying to remember where she was when it happened, but she wasn’t in the room at the time. Probably bored of watching Josh sleep. If she was in the room, Josh would at least have a witness. No one else could see or hear her testify, but he’d have had confirmation that he _wasn’t_ dreaming. As it was, he was utterly alone.

Or, judging by how pale Chris was, maybe not. Something might have sunk in, but Josh didn’t get to know what. The door swung open, and one of the staff members gave them a startled look that morphed into a disciplinary one. Josh heard Chris mumble apologies as he took the opportunity to slip out.

“It was open,” Josh explained blandly, trudging out of the room.


	8. Attrition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the talent show, things go well for some, but not for others.

It took a few days, but Jess could finally outright admit it: she fucked up. Well, she admitted it to herself. So, outright but… internally. Anyway, she screwed something up. That much was clear. That much was bad enough, but to make matters worse, she didn’t actually know what she’d done. Specifically. The song was a joke! It was just a joke, and she thought Chris would cringe and be a little hotheaded, sure, but not… _This_.

Jess watched Chris’s back as he immediately left the room after Group. She sank into her chair with a sigh, watching the others trickle out of the room or stack chairs. After the talent show, Chris didn't seem like he was talking to a _nyone._ It had already been days, and the cold shoulder felt as frigid as ever.

Jess rose to her feet with a huff, crossing her arms. Enough was enough. Jess needed to make amends with Chris, and she needed it to happen today. She had a plan. A simple one, but aren’t the best ones simple? Step one: apologize for the song choice. Step two… Actually, it was a one-step plan.

It was not as difficult to catch Chris as she’d anticipated. He seemed to be lost in thought, and thus was dragging his feet through the halls on the way to lunch. Jess sidled up to him, matching his stride and waiting for him notice her.

 _That_ actually took longer than anticipated.

When Chris finally glanced over to the side Jess was on, he did a double take, reeling back a little finding her there. Chris subdued his surprise, and exhaled through his nose, “What do you want, Jess?”

“Two days. I've been sitting next to Martha in Group for two days, instead of my _friend_ who I actually can feel okay talking about Blackwood next to.”

Chris stopped, turning slowly to face Jess, “Martha?”

Jess blinked, “Yeah. Martha, from Group.” Conveniently, Martha was walking past them, so Jess pointed at her.

Chris blinked right back, and pointed at the same girl, eyebrows raised questioningly. He whispered, “ _Her name’s not Martha_.”

“…” Jess pulled her head back slightly in surprise. She opened and closed her mouth a few times. “Really?”

Chris nodded.

Jess leaned in, “It’s not Martha?”

Chris shook his head, “It’s not.”

“It’s… not,” Jess repeated. On the bright side, it looked like Chris was biting the inside of his cheek to stop from smiling. He broke eventually, and Jess sniggered at herself along with him.

Jess watched Not-Martha disappear to the next corridor, “Huh. Well, what the heck is her name—? Never mind,” Jess let her hand fall to her side with a smack and stepped closer to Chris, who instinctively backed up, into the wall behind him. “I’m sorry about the song. It was a bad joke, I guess,” Chris did an eye-roll, and Jess felt her temper simmer even though Chris seemed like he was regretting letting the reaction slip, “but you’ve been acting really weird ever since. Will you please tell me what is going on?”

Chris looked left and right, no doubt assessing his chances of escape. Realizing his slim chances, he surrendered by closing his eyes and sighing.

When Chris didn’t respond, Jess made another appeal, “Listen, I’m leaving. Tomorrow. I’m getting discharged, and—and I just need us to be okay before I go because…” Jess swallowed, and the hitch of her next breath was what made her aware that she was _crying_ , “Because I didn’t do anything last year after I screwed up, and Hannah and Beth…” her voice failed, and she saw the sympathetic look on Chris’s face before she squeezed her eyes shut.

Chris’s arms were around her, and Jess fell into him. She felt it when his back hit the wall to keep them both propped up on their feet. One of Chris’s hands squeezed her shoulder, “We’re okay, Jess. We’re okay.”

 

Chris had not expected this from the conversation he was bound to have with Jess. Apparently, neither did she because she exclaimed, “God, this is so stupid!” Her voice was muffled against Chris, and the tears and warm breath on the front of his shirt was slightly uncomfortable, but he wasn’t about to make things worse trying to extricate himself just yet. Jess continued, “Why am I even crying? I’m the one who ruined everything! It’s all my fault.”

“It’s not,” Chris defended automatically. He tried for something lighthearted next, “I know you like to take credit for a lot,” he felt Jess cough out a laugh, and he continued, “but that guilt you feel about what happened last year? We all carry it. I think our mistake was each of us was too self-centered to see that no single person was responsible for everything. Millennials,” Chris supplied satirically.

A rush of cool air hit Chris as Jess pulled herself away to sneer at Chris, though it was only half-serious, and the puffy redness of her face detracted from the intimidation factor. “Since when are you so nice?”

Chris felt a wave of guilt, recalling his fight with Josh a few days ago. “I’m not.”

Josh definitely blamed himself for everything, too. And admittedly, he was responsible for a lot more this time around. But even so, not everything. And he didn’t need his supposed best friend icing him out _again_ at another pretty low point, and yet here Chris was, icing him out again.

Jess sniffled, wiping away the rest of her tears. A nod communicated her thanks, and she moved on, “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on with you?”

“I will. But I think I need to figure it out on my own first,” Chris divulged, and though he hadn’t put much thought into the words, they surprised him with how true it felt.

Assuaged, Jess hooked her arm around Chris’s and took them forward.

 

“Josh?”

“Don’t,” Josh cut Hannah off for the millionth time. Today. He knew his sister. Very well. There was a certain way she said his name when she was going to try to talk about something he didn’t want to talk about. To him, the sympathetic tone was something irritating like the sound of a little bit of air squeaking out of a balloon pinched at its opening. A harsh comparison, yes, but still.

Everything hurt. Not just during the possession. All of the time. Light burned, but so did the dark. The din of idle, pointless conversation in the dining room was pounding in his skull. The fabric of his clothes felt like it was shredding his skin. He tried to eat or drink, and whatever it was felt like rusted nails going down, and then like he’d ingested nothing at all when he got it down.

“Joshua.”

Josh jumped at Hannah’s atypically harsh tone. He lifted his head to Hannah to find that she was dead serious. Pun legitimately not intended, swear to god. Josh finally acknowledged that he might have burned Hannah’s fuse a little too much, what with forcing her to “inhabit” him for the past couple of days.

> _“I’m gonna need you to woman the ship for a while, Han,” he blurted, pacing his room._
> 
> _“What?” Hannah asked, still clearly shaken up by the argument she witnessed. Josh felt like his veins were vibrating. He couldn’t handle it. He needed an out._
> 
> _Josh knew that Hannah could very well just deny his request and wake him up, but without any further explanation, he grabbed her hand aggressively. At least the immense pressure made the vibrating stop._

“It’s Tuesday, by the way,” Hannah brought him back.

Tuesday. Hannah gave him almost two full days before she woke him up. He scratched his jaw, and looked down at his lunch a few times just for the briefest respites from Hannah’s death glare. Again, no pun intended.

He cleared his throat, “Yes, my most merciful ghost sister? Friendlier and more beautiful than Casper?”

Hannah crossed her arms. “We need to talk.”

“You can’t break up with me, sis. We’re blood.”

“Would you be serious for once? Jesus, what is wrong with you?” Hannah implored.

 _A lot of things_ , Josh thought. He kept silent.

“Sorry,” Hannah exhaled, making Josh cautiously raise his eyes to meet hers again. He had a feeling she shouldn’t be the one apologizing, but continued to listen quietly.

“How do you feel about Chris?” Hannah inquired out of nowhere.

“I… I don’t know,” Josh answered. And it was the truth. He couldn't settle on a definite, solitary _feeling_ that sufficiently described his attitude toward Chris. That one kiss made Josh question his every action and alleged motivation. If he took a memory from before the kiss, was the way he felt about it then the same as how he felt about it now?

 

> January 2014
> 
> “Can we just… go over it again?” Chris requested.
> 
> Hannah and Beth groaned in unison, and Chris rubbed his eyebrow embarrassed. The twins were standing over him. Chris was seated in Josh’s cushy desk chair and staring owlishly at the large poster board of faces between Hannah and Beth.
> 
> _Blackwood 2014!_ The poster boasted in glittery font.
> 
> “More detail, more detail!” Chris suggested. “Maybe that’ll help put names with faces.”
> 
> Josh pointed to his own photo first, “Joshua Washington, up-and-comer in the constantly-competitive film industry, and your best pal,” he explained didactically with a shit-eating grin.
> 
> Beth hit him. He laughed, and ran for his bed to flop onto it. “I told you not to put our photos on here,” she was looking at Hannah now.
> 
> “It helps with the visual!” Hannah defended. She beckoned for Beth to start.
> 
> “You know Sam,” Beth began, pointing at the photo of her from The Color Run, laughing and covered in paint. Her photo had a line connecting her to Hannah, Beth, Josh, and Chris.
> 
> “Mike,” Hannah sighed his name, and practically stroked his face in the photo of him smiling with a dog, “is still with Emily,” she tapped the neighboring photo of the raven-haired girl looking pensive on a field of grass, “so they’ll come together—”
> 
> “Yeah, I know Mike and Emily, they were in your prom group too, right?” Chris flitted his eyes to Josh, who was on his bed. Josh gave him a silent thumbs up and a supportive smile. _Humor them_ , he communicated with his eyes, and Chris turned back to his teachers.
> 
> “Right,” Hannah nodded. Mike had linking lines to Emily, Sam, and Hannah.
> 
> “This,” Beth traced her finger from her own photo to a blonde girl laughing straight into the camera, piercing gray eyes daring anyone to look anywhere else, “is Jessica Riley. Jess, for short. I met her at a party--"
> 
> "What party?" Josh interrupted. "You go to parties without us?" He placed his hand on his heart in exaggerated shock.
> 
> Beth gave him a look and continued, "She’s an aspiring model. She finished high school early to start getting experience—”
> 
> “She skipped a grade?” Chris interrupted, probably hoping find something personal in common with the girl to help remember her.
> 
> “No, uh,” Beth consulted the ceiling of Josh’s room, “I think she just took an early exit exam?”
> 
> “The chess-pee,” Chris provided nonchalantly.
> 
> “What?” All three Washingtons said in unison.
> 
> “Sorry. CHSPE. California High School Proficiency Exam,” Chris elucidated.
> 
> “Yes!” Beth exclaimed, “She took it when she was sixteen, like, as soon as she was qualified. She said that she convinced her parents that if they let her take the exam, and she passed, they’d let her take a year off to pursue modeling.” That explained the flawlessness of her photo. “Apparently, she hated studying for it, but she said it was worth not being in school this year, even though she ended up applying to colleges with us anyway.”
> 
> “I wonder what it’s like to have college as your second choice,” Hannah pondered facetiously. She looked at the remaining two photos she hadn’t reviewed yet: some Adonis on top of a cliff and a red-haired girl smiling with someone, probably an author, at a book signing. “Matt Taylor and Ashley Brown. Matt's a linebacker on the football team at school, and Ashley…”
> 
> Josh tuned out. He got distracted by the look on Chris’s face when they brought up Ashley. He didn’t even know her, but Chris really looked like he wanted to.
> 
> “Got it, Chris?” Hannah asked hopefully. Chris managed to nod. “This isn’t set in stone, I know, but—!” Hannah sounded optimistic.
> 
> “Mom is not going to let ten of us go up there unsupervised,” Beth predicted.
> 
> “It was hard enough getting this one,” Josh gestured to Chris, still looking mesmerized by Ashley’s photo, “the green light, and Mom knows he’s a dweeb,” he cackled from the bed.
> 
> “I am not a dweeb!” Chris defended, getting out of Josh’s chair.
> 
> Josh rose from the bed to Chris, “Aw,” he cooed, “did I say dweeb?” He snickered, “’Cause I meant to!” Chris socked him in the gut, eliciting a wheeze from Josh. “Uncle! Uncle!” Josh rasped from the floor.

 

“He’s still a dweeb,” Josh offered as the segue into his thought process. Hannah nodded, granting him his first point. “He said back at the lodge, after everything I did, he went back for me… then, everything here... I don't know. I _do_ know one thing, he’s definitely still hung up on Ashley...” He saw Hannah reach out for his hands and then retract, not about to possess him again after being in control for practically two days.

"How do you feel about that? Ashley and Chris?"

Josh narrowed his eyes, questioning his sister's motives. "Chris... deserves to be happy, so..." Josh gestured vaguely when the words he might've wanted to say evaded him.

Hannah proceeded, hands up like she was physically pushing her words over to him, “Promise you’ll try to work things out? Talk to him.”

The truth was: he didn’t _want_ to talk to Chris. The end to their last conversation felt like a sign from the universe. He didn’t even want to think about Chris. If Hannah was sure that her “final purpose” was to make sure Josh was taken care of, then maybe she’d just have to stay forever to be the one taking care of him. He didn’t need anyone else.

Josh ran his hand through his hair, and regretted doing it. Felt like he’d taken a cheese grater to his scalp. Being possessed wasn't getting any easier. Josh supposed that he'd have to build up a tolerance. He would endure anything.

His eyes had somehow ended up on Chris, eating with Jess. Josh forced himself to swallow some of his food. Chris didn’t need him. He looked totally fine; just shooting the shit with Jess. When he got out, he would have Ashley. And maybe, just maybe, keeping his distance with Chris would allow him to keep Hannah. He turned his attention back to his sister.

Win-win.

“Thanks for taking care of me,” Josh said, not caring that it was definitely off-topic.

Hannah tilted her head, somber but affectionate, “You took care of me and Beth our entire lives,” Hannah responded breezily. Josh felt a swell of pride, for Hannah and for himself. He felt… good. He meant the statement of gratitude to be a diversion, and it was, but he didn’t expect it to help himself. But it did. The torturous aches, pains, and general feeling of death subsided for a moment.  He could actually celebrate the fact that his first thought was not one of intrusive guilt about failing to take care of his sisters well enough to save their lives a year ago. He felt like he could actually accept what Hannah said as truth; he was a good brother, and that felt good.

The feeling was short-lived, however. Because as soon as he’d felt it, it was dashed. Before his eyes, Hannah vanished.

 

Emily patrolled the hallway outside the dining room. Something told her that Jess was already inside, but for whatever reason, she was out in the hall, screening the passing faces like she would find a familiar one. It wasn’t for Lester, obviously, though she hadn’t seen him in the past couple days.

The older woman she’d seen Lester talking with in the dining room before came into view. Their eyes met, and the warm smile that the woman gave her somehow got Emily to smile in return, though it also brought Emily the slightest twinge of guilt. The smile she'd received was one clueless about the little comments Emily made about her in her head.

“Hello,” the woman greeted as she made her way to lunch.

“Hi,” Emily gave politely, but then she heard herself say “Wait.” The woman paused, a look of intrigue on her face. “Um…” Emily was in uncharted territory. Usually, she didn’t beat around the bush at all. _What is wrong with me?_ “I was wondering… if you’d seen... Lester recently?” Emily rushed the end of the inquiry. The woman gave a different smile, one that didn’t make Emily want to smile back.

“Oh, Lester? He left on Sunday, I’m afraid.”

 _What?_ “No, but he was here on Sunday. At the talent show.”

“Oh, he was! He told me about his leaving Saturday at dinner, but he promised to stick around for the talent show. He put it together after all, such a sweetheart.”

Emily maintained decorum long enough to make some sort of indication that the woman was free to go. With the woman gone into the dining room, she felt her facial muscles pull into a scowl, and muttered under her breath, “ _Sweetheart._  Piece-of-shit liar’s more like—” Emily stopped herself.

 _Wake up. You have a job to do. Focus on getting out. Get out, expose the truth about Blackwood from the outside. Once the truth is out there, use it to destroy that godforsaken mountain. Then it’s over, happily ever after,_ Emily told herself.

She couldn’t let herself get caught up in… whatever happened. She was glad Lester was gone. She didn’t care why he left without saying goodbye. Emily almost let Lester, some guy she’d met in a psych ward that she would never see again, distract her from what was actually important: getting out of said psych ward.

Shouting startled Emily out of her reverie. She approached the dining room doors, ears detecting commotion from within. She pushed into the room, and discovered the source.

Josh was screaming, tearing through the room, looking lost and broken.

“Hannah! Wh- what happened? I don’t know what I did! Please!” Josh switched between wailing and whimpering almost unnaturally. The understanding that Josh was looking for his dead sister set in, and locked Emily’s muscles. She hadn't heard Hannah's laugh again, just that one time. But hearing Josh call her name reminded Emily.It was like replaying a memory, only the setting went from lodge to this wellness center's dining room. She watched as security and staff closed in on him, and Josh struggled for a bit before Emily saw him being sedated.

Josh was out, and shocked silence became prying whispers, which turned into the dull roar of idle conversation eventually. Emily found Jess and Chris when they were the only two still standing once everyone else in the room had gone back to their meals. They both looked more worried than Emily probably did.

She _was_ worried about Josh, though she wouldn’t admit it aloud. Yes, he was the reason they all had been in the same place as bloodthirsty demons. And not that what Sam told her he’d done to her in the lodge was okay, but at the end of the day, or night, he hadn’t touched Emily. He wasn’t responsible for creating the Wendigo, so he wasn’t the source of her trauma nor the cause of his sisters’ deaths. Emily knew she was closer to the cause of that. He didn’t deserve to suffer as much as he clearly was.

Realistically, if his parents would have any say in who he sees in the near or distant future, her chances of seeing him after this stint in the ward, and after what she was planning for his family’s mountain, were very slim.

Emily closed her eyes. She needed to talk to Josh.


	9. Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emily and a special guest help a few lost souls.

“Please…” Josh heard himself warble. Two days (three days, tops) had passed since Hannah vanished. Josh had spent the first knocked out in his room, with a soreness where they’d stuck the needle into him, like the ghost of a needle remained there. Josh pulled his legs close to his chest to cradle whatever warmth he possessed in bed. Though he was distraught, there had been no tears. He figured he had no more. He’d exhausted the supply without ever having the demand.

He hated crying. It was what made losing Hannah and Beth the first time that much more frustrating. 

> _One sliver of light mocked him, defying the cover of the blackout curtains he’d ripped open and closed, again and again, trying to extinguish any trace of brightness in his room. And yet, that solitary line of sunlight stretched across his face._
> 
> _The light hit one eye or the other, but he refused to move from his place under the covers for a stupid stream of light. Josh weathered another round of sobs and felt worse for it._
> 
> _It had been two weeks. Two weeks since the night Hannah and Beth disappeared. Josh knew because Valentine’s Day had come and gone. Nausea roiled in Josh’s stomach and curdled his lungs to know that people were desperately buying heart-shaped balloons and greeting cards, uploading their blissful photos. Everyone, pretending to be enamored with life, by life, for life._
> 
> _He stormed to the draped window, hands shaking with rage. He tore at the ineffective curtains, snarling at their uncooperativeness. Why the hell would anyone be so stupid or cruel to make blackout curtains that had a useless gap where the two halves met? Josh didn’t care that his muscles were burning and screaming at him to stop. Didn’t care that his face had gotten so wet with tears that it might've looked like he was working out instead of mourning. Didn’t care that the curtains made such a goddamn ruckus when they ended up torn off the windows and in a pitiful heap around his feet. Even with eyes shut, the light illuminated the blood vessels in his eyelids, and the heat from the sun’s rays only exacerbated his temper._
> 
> _Josh screamed until his body felt crushed, and then he made his move. He snatched a pile of flyers off of his desk, sending miscellaneous items flying to the floor. If he was going to be forced out of darkness, he was going to work. Josh felt the boom of his door slamming behind him, but he didn’t hear the sound. He rarely heard anything when it got like this._
> 
> _Josh barreled down the staircase and wrenched the front door open. He barely stopped in time to avoid walking into Sam, who had her fist raised like she was about to knock when Josh ripped the door away from her._
> 
> _“Josh,” she said, with no hint of imbalance._
> 
> _“I’m going to the school to post these,” Josh shook the missing posters gripped tightly in his hand, answering the question that he knew was intended by the way she’d said his name. He didn’t stall to get approval, or permission, or reaction. Josh was in the car, peeling out of the driveway, leaving Sam looking even smaller standing in the looming entrance to his house. The house that was empty with or without him there. No parents, no sisters, no Josh._

Josh could remember the feel of his steering wheel heating up under his vise grip and boiling blood. He tried to clench his fists around an imaginary steering wheel. His hands stayed cold, nerves dulled. If he had the energy, he might have been impressed by how different losing Hannah was this time compared to then. As he was, he fixated on lacing his hands together over his legs, wiggling his fingers just to make sure the lack of warmth didn't mean he was literally fading away to nothing. If he was, Josh wanted to be aware of it.

His ears twitched at the sound of his door opening. He languidly consulted the clock; none of the staff would normally come in at this time. Then again, he hadn’t had an ‘episode’ until now. Josh eventually moved his eyes from the clock face to see who’d come to visit.

Emily gave herself away at the same time, “I'll concede; I think you outdid my scene from a few days ago.” Her voice was quiet, but it still filled the room.

“How’d you get in here?” He figured he wouldn’t be allowed visitors given the recent events.

“Snuck in,” Emily shrugged.

“I can’t imagine it’s as easy as you make it sound to sneak around here,” Josh returned, surprising himself with how conversational he sounded.

“I had some practice.”

Josh readjusted into sitting cross-legged, thinking of how to best ask what Emily was doing in his room.

“I just came to see how you were,” she announced unprompted.

“Oh,” Josh blinked, “I’m… fine.” He ignored the pleas rolling around in his mind. The bargains to no one that he was making just to see Hannah again. The dark, definitely stupid promises he vowed to keep if Hannah would just come back.

Emily nodded, but didn’t make any motion to leave. Josh had a feeling she had ulterior motives, and was not mistaken because she spoke again, “I also wanted to know if I could have the footage from… that night.”

Josh felt his face screwed up in confusion. “Why would you—?”

“Do you have it?” Emily pressed.

“I heard the lodge got a remodel while we were up there. That footage probably…” he imitated the sound of an explosion, “got blown to smithereens.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that you didn’t already have it backed up somehow? I can’t imagine you going through all that set up without thinking up some contingencies.”

“I was a little preoccupied with faking my death, I suppose,” Josh deadpanned. Emily didn’t budge. “The cable car,” Josh forfeited, “The security cams broadcast there, too.”

Emily looked triumphant, probably remembering the screens at the lower station he was referring to. Satisfied, she made for the door, only for Josh to stop her again.

“I don’t know what your angle is…” Josh voiced coldly, and maybe it was seeing that Emily couldn’t hide the way she froze, but Josh sighed and changed his tune, “but I hope that no one gets hurt. Including you.”

Emily turned to look at him over her shoulder. Her eyes were guilty but clear, and after a soft chuckle, she left.

 

Jess had left. Chris had the time to get used it, but it still felt wrong to be in Group without her. Chris blew a weak raspberry and trudged toward the dining room. With Jess gone, and Josh still… not an option, Chris accepted his lonely fate. He would just have to get used to the solitude.

“Hey Specs!” Emily’s voice rang through the corridor. Chris slowed to a halt and looked up to the ceiling, searching for the reason why every time he made a plan, whatever higher power running things just flipped him off. “What’re you looking at?” Emily scrutinized the ceiling quite genuinely.

“An escape hatch,” Chris answered glibly.

“You and me both, Sister Christian. Hey,” Emily rounded on him, cutting off the path ahead with a probing look, “What’s up with you, really?” she demanded.

Two nicknames in quick succession, Chris _had_ to throw in a sarcastic remark, “Do you not remember my name?”

“You and Josh kiss and make up yet?” Emily sighed as she moved away to allow them to walk on. Chris gulped at the choice of words, glad that at least Emily wasn’t in his face right when it was turning red, based on the rise in temperature he felt there.

“No…” Chris managed to push out.

“Gee, who’d have guessed the two of you would come out of this drama-side up, while Jess and I made amends?” Emily remarked with authentic surprise. She met Chris’s eyes, and he saw her manufactured smile slip before she said earnestly, “I’m sure if Jess and I did it, you and Josh will be—” she punctuated her thought with an ‘okay’ hand sign.

But Jess and Emily had a case of stolen boyfriend, not ‘I might have kissed my best friend after he pretended he died and trapped us on a mountain with bloodthirsty ancient spirits.’ Not feeling the same optimism, Chris bit out, “How’re things with you and Mike?”

Part of him regretted saying it, but Emily was virtually indestructible, wasn’t she? “Is whatever’s going on between you and Josh really on the same level as me and my trigger-happy ex- _boyfriend_?” So she was indestructible, and wickedly astute to boot.

“Forget it.”

“You brought it up. Answer my question,” Emily ordered. They had reached their destination, and Chris gave the dining room door a forceful push to avoid responding.

It didn't look like Josh was there. Again.

“I don’t see him,” Emily stage-whispered. Chris crossed his arms, irritated that he was apparently so obvious.

When they sat down at a table, Chris dug into his lunch, but Emily just pushed things around her plate, eyes locked on him like a hawk. Mouth full, Chris gestured to her food, “Could you just—?” Emily rolled her eyes, and heaved a great sigh before turning her attention to eating.

 

“Tell me what’s going on,” Emily insisted for the thousandth time. It was after dinner now. Chris had enjoyed relative peace and quiet—well, “enjoyed” and “peace” were strong words—while Emily was in Group, but she came back full force. They ended up wandering quite aimlessly about the facility—Chris trying to low-key escape his company and his company trying to high-key unlock the vault to all of his secrets.

Not that Chris had secrets. Open book.

Even though Chris was certain that he wanted to shake Emily off, he illogically and incongruously waited for her when she suddenly paused in the hallway they stood in. He pulled his eyebrows together trying to decipher the disquieting, devious smirk she bore. Before he could follow her line of sight, she turned to Chris, “ _I have an idea_ ,” she whispered dangerously.

“ _That sounds awful, bye_ ,” Chris whispered back, but his attempt to escape was squandered by a vise grip on his shirt sleeve. He whined.

Chris begrudgingly followed Emily to the end of the hall, and to his chagrin, she stopped under the glowing exit sign, saying probably the worst possible thing she could have said—no matter how melodically she said it, “Prison break!”

It was too easy, way too easy to sneak out when it was probably one of the last things Chris wanted to do. Sneaking out meant risking getting caught, and getting caught probably meant getting in trouble, and getting in trouble was not cool. On top of that, “ _Em, it is cold as balls out here; this is insane_ ,” Chris whispered harshly.

“You’re not being very inclusive with that kind of language, sir,” Emily gibed.

“Are you being inclusive _to my balls_?” Chris threw back.

Emily found a rock to stop the door from locking them out. “Women have to live with office air conditioning biased toward the metabolic rates of sweaty pig men, so you can deal with this. I just want some fresh air,” she took a deep breath for emphasis.

Personally, Chris wouldn’t mind a warmer office climate if it meant he didn’t have to stand out in the snow wearing a single, papery layer of clothing, far removed from his proclivity for bundling up. Chris made a sound that was some cross between shivering and griping, but he remained at Emily’s side. They stuck close to the side of the building, arms crossed over their chests and breath coming out in puffy clouds of condensation.

“I’ll be well on my way home this time tomorrow,” Emily shared, her voice as light as snowflakes coming to rest on the ground.

Chris smiled, though it hurt a little in the cold. “You decided to celebrate by sneaking out less than twenty-four hours before you’ll be officially released?”

“Never take the easy way. It’s boring,” Emily expounded. Chris shrugged; boring sounded pretty good these days. “I mean, I fell off a fire tower into the depths of hell, escaped, almost got shot, now I’m trapped here, where I’m—what—the third-to-last person to leave?”

Chris bit his lip. Emily had been through the wringer. And the wringer was covered in barbed wire. And on fire.

“So,” she started with an atypical brightness, “you should really just tell me everything you’re hiding. I doubt anyone else in this place is as smart as I am.”

Maybe it was the cold, but against better judgment, Chris accepted the invitation, and prepared to unleash the contents of his mind. Truthfully, he was dying for some help from someone like her. For anyone to survive what she had, you had to be pretty darn resourceful. Also, he was feeling a little vindictive because Emily dragged him out to the Canadian winter practically naked and was being so nosy. She asked for it; he was going to deliver.

“I might have kissed Josh, like on the mouth with my mouth our first night here, but I thought it was a dream. And in the dream, I was initially kissing Ashley, which I told Jess about, but then Ashley turned into Josh, which I never told Jess about, so then Jess sang ‘Dream a Little Dream of Me’ because she just thought I had a sex dream about Ashley. But actually, it was about Josh, and it has been messing with my head, so I just kinda was staring at Josh during yours and Jess’s song. And then, he caught me and flipped out and we had an argument and he said it wasn't a dream, but we got interrupted before we resolved anything, and we haven’t spoken since.”

It took a while for Chris to catch his breath. When he raised his eyes to gauge Emily’s reaction, she was blinking at him with a straight face.

“So you had a sex dream about Josh.”

“No! It,” Chris sighed, “It wasn’t a sex dream. I just kissed him.”

“In real life?” Emily sought for clarification.

“No. Yes? Technically, yes—maybe, I don't know,” Chris attempted.

“You wanted to kiss him,” Emily hypothesized. The insinuation rattled him. It hadn't crossed his mind this entire time.

“No, uh, I don’t think so." He paused, "I wanted to kiss Ashley.” 

"Why'd Josh freak out?"

"I don't know... ask _him_ ," Chris enlightened.

“Okay, let’s break this down a little,” Emily made imaginary divides with her hands, “Ignore the real-not-real aspect for a second. Regardless, the Josh aspect of the dream got to you, in real life. Why?”

Chris blinked, sinking to sit on his haunches.

Emily forged on, “Did this dream make you look at Josh differently?”

Chris stammered, unintelligible even to himself.

Emily joined him at his lower station, “Yes or no, Christopher.”

“Yes,” Chris grumbled.

“Do you regret it?” Emily posed.

Chris exhaled noisily, “I don’t know…"

Before he proceeded, Emily rose, looking expectantly for Chris to do the same. Chris gratefully followed Emily back into the building and out of the cold, and kept following her… all the way to a door labeled _SECURITY_. Chris suddenly felt he’d swallowed a brick. “Uh, what are we doing here?”

Emily knocked on the door before answering, “We are going to find out if you sleepwalked. Slept-walked? Ah, you get it,” she patted Chris’s head patronizingly. No one answered the door. “You owe me for this,” she sang before effortlessly breaking into the room. Seriously, it was like the place was designed to be trespassed.

Chris gulped at the menacing entrance before him, and cast a nervous glance around the corridor. They must have been outside for a while because no one was out and about. He followed Emily inside.

When Chris located Emily, she was already scrubbing through security footage, “You said our first night, right?” she asked softly, putting her energy into the screen rather than enunciating. Chris nodded numbly, which Emily didn’t see.

 _Maybe it’d be better not to know for sure_ , Chris ventured. And of course, that was exactly when Emily called “Bingo!”

It was like his life was just one big cosmic joke. There it was: undeniable proof, video evidence, that Chris planted one on his best friend.

“Wow, you really went for it, huh? It’s like _Sleeping Beauty_ in there,” Emily remarked.

Chris slapped his head into his hands, “I don’t need to hear what it _looks like_ , I can see. But thanks, I guess,” came his muffled voice, with a splash of sarcasm and more than a hint of humiliation.

"It's not a big deal, is it?" Emily brought up again. Chris heard himself waffling, and Emily gave him a challenging look. "Why is this such a big deal?"

Chris felt like the room did get warmer, and smaller, "I- It's not..." he uttered, but it was drowned out by Emily prying again, "Is this a big deal?"

It wasn't. It wasn't, but he couldn't talk. Why couldn't he answer? The silence waiting for his response was so loud. It was making his head feel like it was in a blender.

"Chris..."

"No!" he was heaving breaths, like he couldn't have taken in any oxygen until he answered. It felt like all of the energy, pinballing through him just moments ago, was sapped out, leaving him slumping into the crook of his arm. "This is ridiculous..." he said weakly.

Emily replayed the video an inordinate amount of times, especially considering zero was the comfortable number of views. It was during the fifth, maybe twelfth, time she replayed it that Chris let out a weird honk of grievance into his hands. The sound caught Emily off-guard, and she finally paused it and tore herself away from the screen.

“At least now the doctor’s questions about my family’s history with sleepwalking make sense now,” Chris droned.

“ _Does_ your family sleepwalk?” wondered Emily.

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’ with his eyes inertly on the freeze frame of him leaning into Josh.

“This was the first time you’ve ever sleepwalked, and you _kissed_ someone?” she asked torturously. Chris just bobbed his head slowly. He was still doing it when Emily snuck in “Is Josh a good kisser?” Chris almost heard a record scratch in the silent night, and he shot a glare at Emily.

“Not helping.”

 

The first thing Hannah heard was familiar. So, so familiar, and yet she couldn’t place it. She opened her eyes.

At least, that’s what she’d told herself to do. Her brain queued up the idea, processed it, presumably sent the signals to the muscles in her eyes… why was it still pitch black?

“Hannah…” a voice came in the void. And immediately, she knew.

“Beth,” she heard the raspy, weak crack in her own voice. Both of their voices did not echo like Hannah would have imagined a voice to do in this… sightless state. She imagined she was in an abyss, a cavern, completely obscured in darkness, but the lack of echo dismissed that. Really, their voices were clearer than Hannah could ever remember or imagine hearing any sound.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Beth’s voice came.

“Why aren’t you?” countered Hannah.

“I just did, butthead.” Beth laughed. Her laugh was the most comforting thing that Hannah could remember. Josh’s laughter was contagious and heartening, but to hear her twin sister laugh in that moment was positively restorative.

Hannah struggled to decide on her first question , “Why can’t I see?”

Beth exhaled a fond laugh through her nose, she teased, “Not sure I know what you’re talking about.” Suddenly, the vision of her toes mingling in fine sand appeared vivid and bright. Experimentally, she wiggled her toes to bury them into the white sand; she still had no sense of tactility. Just a few paces ahead was a perfect blue ocean, ebbing and flowing. Her attention went to the ends of her hair being tossed by a brisk, briny breeze. And the movement of her eyes brought the presence of another person by her side into view.

Her eyes widened. “Beth!” she exclaimed to her companion.

Beth winced, “Jesus, don’t yell, I’m right here,” but her pretense of scolding was betrayed by a smile overcoming her face.

Hannah just gawked, in awe of seeing her sister so far removed from the horrifying state she’d last seen her in. Last left her in.

Beth interrupted Hannah’s fruitless attempts to contribute a fully-formed sentence with, “What are you doing here?”

“Me?” a gull accompanied Hannah with a cry of its own, “What—how—”

“You’re not supposed to be here.”

Hannah felt her throat constrict, pressure mounted behind her eyes. Part of her did want to get back to Josh, to finish everything, whatever that meant. But still, it felt like her sister was rejecting her.

Ever the mind-reader, Beth calmly said, “I don’t mean I don’t _want_ you with me. Just not your time.”

Hannah searched the sound of the wind and sea for something to say.

When nothing came, Beth provided, “Josh still needs you.”

Hannah ground out, “You didn’t _see_ him—”

“I _do_ ,” Beth cut off, affronted. “I see every—”

“Then you know what me being there is doing to him! Look, I don't know how I got here, but... maybe I'm glad! I'm happy I'm not there, hurting him." Beth made an attempt to object, but Hannah didn't allow it. "No! He’s… he’s dying! Because of me! It’s like my presence is sucking the _life_ out of him. I can’t do it anymore. I don’t want to be that... that kind of… _entity_ in the world!” Hannah decried.

Beth pulled her, rather aggressively, into a hug. And Hannah _felt_ it. She could feel how tender the embrace was, despite its jolting initiation.

After two waves surged and receded, Hannah croaked out the only things that her mind could conjure, “I’m sorry” and “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Beth replied before Hannah finished speaking, like—once again—she knew what Hannah was going to say before she said it.

Beth released her, and Hannah took a deep, albeit shaky, breath. They had so much lost time to make up for.

"It'll be okay," Beth assured, returning her gaze to the ocean. Hannah followed, admiring the jewel-like glint of the water. "Open your eyes."

Before Hannah could express her confusion at the request--her eyes _were_ open--the sunlight intensified to the point of washing out the scene. And her sister.


	10. Clarity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The culmination of past events come to present.

The outlines of furniture in Josh’s room at the psych ward bloomed into focus, like a developing polaroid. There was something new in the room, resembling a bearskin rug on the floor in front of her. Hannah blinked a few more times, and she found that it was Josh, just lying on the floor.

“Josh,” she called, and he slowly lifted his head. After making eye contact, he lowered his head back down delicately. Then, he did a double take and scrambled to get on his feet like the floor was lava.

“Hannah!” Josh cried, almost tackling her to the ground with a vise-like hug. Hannah’s entire forehead raised. Josh was hugging her, and she wasn’t getting pulled into taking over his body. Instead, she could feel his arms, his chest, his heartbeat. She could feel. She _felt_. She felt her weight in her feet, the hair on her head, the material of her clothes. She felt the solidness of the floor, its force equal and opposite the soles of her shoes. She let her eyes fall closed, and tears cascaded down her cheeks. “How…?” she whispered.

“Not gonna lie, I have no idea,” Josh sniffled, “and I’m kinda scared to move now,” he laughed but his voice was thick with emotion. Hannah laughed too, tickled by the rumble of Josh’s laughter and by the fact that she was feeling the same way—her own fear had kept her arms pinned at her sides instead of around Josh.

Hope and love warmed her, but something niggled at the back of her mind. In hindsight, seeing her sister was great, but Beth hadn't changed much. Hannah still felt like she had no grip on this afterlife business, no control over staying or leaving. All Hannah could think to do was kick herself for thinking before that all she needed to do to release her spirit was help herself and get closure with Mike. How could she have been so self-obsessed?

Actually, she knew how. The ridiculous thing was, she deluded herself into believing that making everything about her was what she needed. Because she believed no one noticed her. Certainly not her crush. She was the wallflower in every coming-of-age romance. She was helpless on her own. She was the downtrodden damsel, always in distress. So, she needed her sister, her brother, her best friend to lift her up. Forever. And the one time they couldn’t be there to do that? She tried to take off her clothes and let a stupid prank disintegrate her. She felt used, and yet never acknowledged that she had used people—people she loved—for so long.

She let her learned helplessness poison her life, and catalyze its end. The feeling was real, but maybe it didn’t have to be reality—maybe she just allowed it to be so. Maybe because, myopically, it felt easier. Even in the weeks in the mines of Blackwood, starving and lost, even then, she found a way to _take_ , to physically tear away, from her sister. She surrendered her agency to her delusion, and then she took and took because the delusion convinced her that she was deprived. She took, and she let an ancient spirit transform her into a monster.

But her power was hers to take back.

Josh cleared his throat, "Uh, Han? My arms are getting tired, and you haven't said anything for like five minutes. So, I'm just gonna--" he held his breath and released her. "Huh, no more possessing then, I guess," he uttered when nothing of consequence occurred once they parted. He experimentally hugged her again. Then he poked her in three places and lightly slapped her face--

"Josh!"

"Sorry! For science!" he laughed. Hannah didn’t deprive him of his mirth. She had lost track of time since she disappeared from the dining room, but however long it had been, Josh had gotten a break from being intermittently possessed by a ghost and honestly? He looked a lot better because of it.

When he settled of his own accord, Hannah found herself in a contemplative mood, “It’s ironic. It took becoming a ghost to finally realize I had something of substance.”

Josh cocked his head to the side from his position on the edge of his bed, “Meaning?”

“… I’ll be right back,” Hannah said with her index finger raised. She left the room on a mission. After a search longer than anticipated, she found Chris, standing alone outside the building, shivering but absorbed in thought. An impressed, surprised feeling washed over her. The guy had a rebellious streak after all, sneaking himself out of the ward undetected.

When she returned, Hannah resumed her conversation with Josh, “All my life, I pictured myself as… this princess waiting to be rescued from a locked and guarded tower, but I never realized that I could have opened the door and left any time I wanted to.”

“Still not following. You know, you’re speaking in aphorisms like this is some clichéd ending,” Josh tilted his chin up like he was warily challenging her.

“Maybe it is.”

The tide of understanding rolled into Josh.

Hannah braced herself with a deep breath. “You have a choice to make,” she began, “But you’ve already seen how one of the options plays out. If you give power to delusions, they take control. They convince you that you don’t deserve anyone, or that no one deserves to be… ‘dragged down’ with you. They force your hand to set fire to the only remaining bridges that connect you to the person I know you are. But you have sole ownership of that power. Take it back. Harness it. Never relinquish it again.”

Hannah hoped the words were sinking in; it was actually super difficult to try to drop wisdom on the fly. When Josh’s eyes met Hannah’s, she kept going, “You love your friends, our friends, and they love you back. Otherwise, what we all did to each other wouldn’t have hurt so much.” He looked away, so Hannah grabbed his face with both of her hands. “Remember that.”

He still wasn’t looking, so she squeezed his cheeks together, and laughed at the grumpy, squished face of his that deserved so much happiness.

So, in pursuit of that happiness, she initiated the final stage of Operation: Hartington. “I saw Chris outside in the snow.”

Josh shot up from the bed, “Now? He’s leaving?”

Hannah empathized with how altered Josh was hearing Chris’s name, “He’s not leaving, no... But you should come with me.”

“Man, you’re all cryptic and mysterious now. Did you learn all the secrets of the universe or something while you were gone?” Josh baited.

Hannah turned to face her brother with a smirk, “I learned _something_ , Josh,” Hannah said in a playful voice. Satisfied with the redness of Josh’s face, Hannah flipped her hair and triumphantly led the way to the desired corridor. Truth be told, Hannah was bluffing, but that look on his face wasn't a coincidence. Perhaps Operation: Hartington was more than she thought.

“You know,” Hannah said as she walked backwards to face Josh, “I’m no expert, but the security around here seems super lax.” She gestured to the exit door, propped slightly ajar by a rock.

“Tell me about it,” Josh agreed, keeping a comical distance from the door.

Hannah silently asked, _What are you waiting for?_ But Josh didn’t move. “Door’s open, Josh. All you have to do is…” she swept air out the door with her hands.

 _Not even a step closer._ Hannah sighed, letting her hands fall. “Josh.”

“Hm?” Josh raised his eyebrows like he was innocent.

Arms akimbo, Hannah called with more intensity, “Josh.”

Josh feigned ignorance, “What, what do you want?”

An eye-roll brought the crude doorstop into Hannah’s view, which put an idea in her mind. She smiled. Renewed, she went for Josh once more, “I’m corporeal. Don't make me do this.”

Josh’s eyebrows knitted closer, legitimately unaware of what Hannah was smiling about. He gulped because of the uncertainty, but shrugged, “You can’t drag me out there.” He was calling her bluff.

Hannah wasn’t dragging anyone outside, but she wasn’t bluffing this time either. She reached down and removed the rock, causing the door to snap shut.

Josh’s eyes, meanwhile, went wide open in shock. “ _Hannah!_ ” he whisper-yelled sharply.

Chris’s muffled panic was just audible through the door. “ _Crap—shit, what the fuck—Seriously?_ ” The door handle rattled and resisted tugs from the other side for a little while. To Hannah’s delight, Josh lunged for the door, but then he hesitated and didn’t open it.

Chris pounded on the door once before apparently rethinking it, and a softer thud absorbed the rest of the vibrations he sent through the door. It sounded like he'd started begging the door to open, punctuating each entreaty with a gentle thud that was definitely his head against the metal.

Josh looked utterly torn. His face was starting to wrinkle in a few places. Finally, he pointed a trembling finger at Hannah, “If you leave without letting me say goodbye to you,” he began threateningly.

Hannah just gave him a hug, and felt him relax against his will. “Go,” she whispered. Josh braced himself, and went through the door.

 

“Oho, yes! Phew! Thank you, thank you, I could—” Chris halted his praises when he saw Josh. “Hey,” he said semi-casually.

“Hi,” Josh said, before sucking in his lips and clamping down to avoid chattering teeth. Josh grabbed a new rock for the door, and by the time he positioned it, Hannah was offering him the old one. He gave his best unamused face, and took the rock. He kept it out of sight until he was sure Chris was not looking, at which point he chucked it as hard as he could.

If Chris heard the _phft_ of the rock hitting the snow, he didn’t say.

After some time passed in complete silence, Chris’s voice startled him a bit, “Happy Valentine's Day."

"What? Oh... yeah, uh- you too." The decorations around the clinic made more sense with that info. 

"How’d you know I was out here?”

Josh let his mouth hang open for a bit, searching for words, “I didn’t, but…” He decided he probably shouldn’t say anything about Hannah being a ghost, “I was just walking by and heard someone talking to the door.”

The redness on Chris’s nose from the cold spread to his cheeks, “Right. Well thanks,” he chuckled.

Josh bowed his head. “What are you doing out here?” Josh queried.

“Uh, just thinking… Em took me out here, on her last night, so…” Chris trailed off.

“You’re doing the same thing?” Josh guessed. Chris was dithering, but then he nodded. Josh felt like his heart wilted a little; Chris _and_ Hannah were about to be free, to move on.

“I’m glad you found me,” Chris said. “Not just because you saved me from an embarrassing death, either. I was out here trying to figure out how to… talk to you.”

Josh crossed his arms over his chest, “That’s something you had to ‘figure out?’”

Chris stammered, “I thought so… You and I don't really rehash arguments. Afterwards, we just kind of take a break and then act like it never happened after enough time has passed.”

“Is that what you want to do now?” Josh forced himself to ask.

“Um… didn't work out so well for us this past... year,” Chris answered obliquely. 

The whisper of the wind dominated for a minute or so. And then, “So, I—” came at the same time as, “About the kiss—”

“You first,” Chris muttered.

Keeping his eyes on the blanket of white stretched across the scene before him, Josh intoned, “A kiss in a dream doesn’t necessarily mean a romantic interest. I've looked it up before.” He chanced a look at Chris and found him looking straight ahead, expression unreadable, which was new for Josh.

The wind picked up a little, sending flurries of snow in new directions.

Chris turned and their eyes met for an instant before Chris’s eyes averted to Josh’s neck or thereabouts, "It wasn’t a dream,” Chris said. Josh felt like the wind got knocked out of him. Chris went on, “That’s what I was trying to figure out how to tell you. I found out for sure that it wasn’t a dream.” Josh felt a “but” coming. “But I don’t remember it because… I was sleepwalking.”

Josh’s eyes wouldn’t reopen for a long time. When they did, Chris was biting his lip, his eyes silently pleading Josh to say something. He also looked like he might turn into a popsicle at any moment.

Josh settled on, “We should probably head inside.” Chris took a moment, but eventually resigned with a solemn nod in return. What was he supposed to say? Josh found himself searching for Hannah, which brought his attention to the door just as it was closing again. “Shit! Chris, the door!”

The two of them almost reached it in time to keep it open. Josh raised his fist to bang on the door when he heard Hannah through the door, “ _Don’t!_ ” Josh froze and then raised a halt sign to Chris, too. Both of them were listening, though Josh was pretty sure Chris wouldn’t hear anything. Hannah continued, “ _Sorry, it was me... someone’s coming, so I had to close it. I’ll… I’ll open it when they’re gone, promise."_ There was a break before Hannah added, " _You're not done anyway, mister!_ "

Josh’s sigh made a temporary clearing in the frost of the locked door. Chris, on the other hand, was not reassured at all, considering he heard none of Hannah’s explanation. He gave Josh a _what the fuck are you on, we’re freezing to death or getting busted_  look that only diminished slightly when Josh gave a placating wave.

“Got a friend on the other side,” Josh explained, very proud of his double meaning.

“ _Ha-ha, Josh, very funny,_ ” Hannah quipped through the door, making Josh’s smile even bigger. Chris visibly relaxed, though he appeared intrigued by the grin on Josh’s face.

“A friend, huh? They got you smiling?” Chris pried, though the smile was catching.

Another wave of silence. Chris swung his arms and spoke again, “Are we good?”

 _You have a choice to make._ Hannah’s words rang in his head.

“No.” Josh was fairly certain he heard himself speak before he even thought to do it. He felt something flurry like snow within him. With almost convulsive movements, his hands went to either side of Chris’s head. The last thought Josh had was that Chris’s ears were cold; his mind blanked when he pressed his lips on Chris’s. A surprised noise got caught in Chris’s throat, and a switch flipped in Josh, turning all of his butterflies into electric shocks—realization, fear, and panic coursed through, and then… he felt the unmistakable sensation of Chris kissing back.

The switch flipped again. And it was like the butterflies divided to multiply into tinier, faster ones. Chris’s ears didn’t feel cold anymore. Warmth radiated from the place where their lips met, overtaking the cold, conquering every breeze.

“ _Josh._ ” 

How Chris managed to say his name while kissing him was nothing short of a miracle, but he didn’t care. 

“Josh?” Chris’s voice sounded miles away, “Hey.”

Suddenly, the warmth was gone. Chris wasn’t filling Josh’s entire visual field.

Josh felt a hand on his arm, anchoring him to reality. Chris was looking at him, little lines sloping down in a valley between his eyebrows. “Are we okay?”

“... Yeah, man,” Josh said. He cleared his throat and felt outside of himself, watching himself bring Chris in for a hug, “Get in here.” With his face over Chris’s shoulder and out of view, Josh squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his jaw. His stab wound ached. “Of course we are,” he murmured again. He didn’t believe it the second time either. Josh gave Chris one final squeeze and patted his back. Their eyes met as they drew apart.

Lowering his arms brought another stab of pain in his shoulder. Josh unconsciously brought his hand up to it.

When concern etched itself onto Chris’s face, Josh offered, “Your girl missed all my vital organs, so…” the words _your girl_ felt unusual on his tongue, “you know she’s a keeper when she cares enough about humanity to not even hit a masked maniac where it _seriously_ hurts.”

Chris didn’t say anything, but the color in his cheeks said it all.

With a quality Josh could only describe as reluctant, the door opened, and the rock was in place, keeping it so.

Chris smiled warmly and tilted his head toward the door. “That’s our cue,” Chris said. He was still glued to his spot, though, watching the snow falling and flexing his fingers.

Through the crack of the door, Josh stared at Hannah until she signaled furiously at him to return his focus to Chris.

“We…” he started speaking just because of Hannah’s fervor, not knowing where he was going. He cleared his throat and tried again, “We still on for that movie?” Josh asked.

Chris seemed caught off guard, but then glad of the reminder. He turned his body fully to face Josh and smile at him again, and finally took a step toward the door. “You know it.”

 

"Well, big brother, it's been real," Hannah remarked once she and Josh returned to his room.

Josh made a sarcastic quip back, "Thanks for the reassurance. For a minute there, I thought this entire two weeks was all just a cuckoo, convoluted hallucination. Or an elaborate dream." He held his arm out, "Pinch me."

Hannah obliged, laughing at his dramatic exaggeration of a pain response. "Now, I'm not going to ruin this moment by prying about anything..." Hannah sang, to Josh's rising discontent, "I'm not saying anything! Absolutely nothing about... _feelings_... Nothing." She pulled an imaginary zipper across her lips. Josh was not amused. "Sorry, I'm done. But seriously..." she restarted, grabbing Josh's hands, "thank you."

Josh inhaled and held his breath, probably to restore his patience, before letting it go. "For finding your true purpose? Your _raison d'être_? For being the wind beneath your wings?" Josh said dreamily.

Hannah smiled and squeezed his hands in hers, "All of the above."

Josh rolled his eyes, but smiled. It almost had some humility to it, for a change. "Same to you." Josh looked like he was trying to memorize her hands in his for a while. "So, that's it then?" he asked.

 _Was it?_ Hannah wondered. She didn't  _feel_ any different. Was she supposed to know when it was time? Would there be a ray of light? Was she going to turn into flower petals? Maybe snowflakes would make more sense, given the setting. How was she supposed to say goodbye? How could she? Despite her doubts, Hannah took a deep breath and confidently said, "That's it. Well, you've got some things to figure out, Joshua, I mean it-- _don't_  give up. Who knows what drastic measures I'd have to take to slap sense into you after this?"

Josh was unresponsive, biting his frowning lip. Eventually, Josh volunteered hoarsely, "You know you and Beth are... everything to me. I love you."

Hannah felt emotion constrict her throat, and she tried to swallow it, to be strong. She took a deep breath, and with it came the memory of Beth. And her memory compelled her to say, "We love you, too. But now, you focus on you. For us. I know that it feels like this is just an ending, but it's not." She paused, and Josh still looked downcast, "It is an end, but... it's also a beginning."

The quiet tenderness in the room felt like validation. She swung Josh's hands supportively.

"Wow," Josh breathed, "That... is super corny."

Offended, Hannah gasped and let go of Josh's hands. "Josh!" she admonished, but Josh's laughter made it impossible to act mad.

After a drawn-out sigh of satisfaction, Josh cleared his throat and put on a serious face, "I'm sorry. It's not corny." Hannah rolled her eyes. "It's not! It helps, I promise." Josh held his hands back out.

Hannah accepted them with an exasperated sigh, but Josh simpered until Hannah gave in and laughed.

"Okay, one last question."

Hannah nodded. "Shoot."

Josh tilted his head slightly, "Was there _really_ a guard or someone back there? Patrolling the hall?"

Hannah threw her head back and laughed, "You're gonna have to trust me, Josh."

And to that, Josh smiled again, "I trust you."

 

> _“A butterfly?”_
> 
> _“I love butterflies! What, you don’t like it?”_
> 
> _Josh scrunched his nose, “It’s not that…”_
> 
> _“But?” Hannah provided, watching Josh scour his room for his camera’s lens._
> 
> _“… It’s a little derivative, isn’t it?” he said, twisting one lens on and checking the viewfinder._
> 
> _Through the lens, Josh saw Hannah wilt marginally, “Derivative?”_
> 
> _He straightened up, his eyes meeting Hannah’s, “It’s a common tattoo. All I’m saying.”_
> 
> _Hannah frowned. “I guess it’s popular, but for good reason! And so what? I did it for me, no one else. It’s special to me.” Hannah bit her lip. Technically, it was for herself. Wasn’t it? She examined the black ink on her shoulder, feeling a sense of wonder rise to supplant doubt. “I like it.” She traced the butterfly’s wings with her eyes. “The tattoo artist said butterflies are symbols of hope… transformation… and—”_
> 
> _The flash of the camera caught her by surprise just when she looked up._
> 
> _“Josh, I wasn’t ready!”_
> 
> _Josh ignored her, peering at the camera’s display in silent concentration instead. Hannah felt compelled to continue voicing her disapproval, but the look on Josh’s face while he studied the picture took all the heat out of her words. When Josh finally beckoned to her, Hannah eagerly moved over to Josh’s side to see if she’d read his face correctly as satisfied._
> 
> _She had. The picture was good. It was only for Beth, anyway, but it really was nice. She couldn’t contain her excitement, just imagining what they would think… what_ Mike _would think, what he’d say when he saw it._
> 
> _“And?” Josh prompted._
> 
> _“Huh?”_
> 
> _“‘Hope, transformation, and…?’”_
> 
> _“Freedom.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :') This began as a passing thought, one of quite a few I have accumulated over the years that could expand Until Dawn, but this was the one with enough juice to take off. I finally got it all written thanks to inspiration from reading all of the amazing writing I've read here on AO3, and the heartening, encouraging kudos and comments. Thank you for lifting me up :D This has been so much fun to write. It's my first fanfic!
> 
> I wanted to write something that gave Hannah and Josh a happier conclusion, and hoped I could finish it on the anniversary of the date central to the game timeline. That said, this ending doesn't resolve everything brought up in this story's progression; ideas are brewing about how to do that for everyone... or to complicate their lives even more >:) But that's for another day and another title. :)


End file.
